by Rebecca York
“Let me finish. I’ll go through the woods—down the other side of the mountain. If they follow me, so much the better.’’
“No,’’ she gasped out. “They won’t kill me. They’ll kill you.’’
“They—’’ He stopped short, changed the direction of his comment. “As soon as I’m out of range of their communications equipment, I’m going to call Randolph Security. They’ll come through for us when I tell them what’s going on.’’
“For all we know, they’re working with these guys,’’ she said. “Like they were working with Roy.’’
“No,’’ he answered quickly. Too quickly. As he tried to untangle her fingers from his shirt, she felt everything that they’d built together over the past months slipping from her grasp. “Amanda, let go. I have to get the controllers for the explosives.’’
She forced her fingers to go limp, then watched with her heart pounding as he dashed into the living room. Every moment that he was out of her sight was an eternity. Then he was back, holding up two sets of controls and the two-way radios. “When I get back with reinforcements, I’ll call you,’’ he said, stuffing equipment into the backpack.
“Don’t be frightened if you hear me setting off some charges in the woods. It’s just a diversion.’’
She could only stare at him numbly, trying to take it all in. All along he’d been preparing her for this moment, but she had never really believed that it was going to happen.
With his free hand, he pointed to a row of buttons on the other controller. “Remember, these are the ones near the entrance to the shelter. And these are for the grounds around the house. Do you remember the sequence?’’
“Yes,’’ she wheezed.
He opened the top dresser drawer, took out a pistol and set it beside her on the bed. “Keep this with you. There are more weapons in the shelter.’’
He bent and pressed his lips to hers—the kiss a flare of intense emotions burning between them. “I love you. Never forget how much I love you. Get to the shelter, so I know you’re safe. Promise me that!’’
“Don’t say it that way. Don’t make it sound like you’re saying goodbye,’’ she gasped.
“I’m not. I can take care of myself. But I have to know you’re safe.’’
“All right. I promise,’’ she managed to reply although it wasn’t what she wanted to say. She wanted to beg him to stay with her or take her with him. But she held the plea back, because she knew it wouldn’t do either one of them any good. He gave her arm a quick squeeze, then turned and slipped out of the room.
She kept her eyes glued to his broad shoulders as long as she could see them. When she heard the back door close, she knew she was on her own.
“Matt. I love you, Matt.’’ The words were a choked whisper on her lips. She wanted to burrow under the covers. Instead she listened for sounds of activity outside the house. But she could hear nothing.
They’d long since traded in the Cadillac for a couple of sport utility vehicles that could negotiate the rough roads leading to their fortress. One was always parked near the house so she wouldn’t have to walk far in case they needed to get away fast. The other was on the far side of the mountain, and she reasoned that Matt must be heading there.
Which meant she should duck down the path to the shelter while he was leading them in the other direction. But before she could push herself off the bed, a pain gripped her abdomen.
It lasted half a minute, and when it was over, she sucked in a breath, then let it out in a rush. Suddenly a passage from one of her maternity books flashed into her mind. Persistent lower-back ache could be a sign of labor. And her lower back had been hurting since the day before.
But she hadn’t considered the onset of labor last night or this morning, because it was too early. She still had three weeks to go, and there was no doubt about her due date. That had been established with exact precision at the Highton clinic. Please, God, she begged, Not now. Don’t let this be the real thing. Just let it be false labor. Just let it stop. Her silent prayer was rudely interrupted by a sound from outside—the sound of gunfire.
On a moan of terror, she pushed herself up and rushed to the window, her eyes straining to catch sight of her husband. But he was already out of view, and she could see nothing besides the sun shining down on the splendor of the fall foliage.
Chapter Sixteen
Matt heard the crack of weapons fire, felt a bullet whiz past his ear, heard the impact of another as it plowed into a tree not far from his right shoulder.
Terror for Amanda banded his chest, making it hard to draw a full breath as he ran. He’d forced himself to leave. Now he didn’t even know if he’d done the right thing. Should he have stayed with her and tried to hold them off? What if she couldn’t get to the shelter? What if they didn’t care about what happened to her? What if they thought that the baby was far enough along so that they didn’t need the mother?
He almost turned around. Then reason asserted itself. He had to be out of the area to call Randolph Security; otherwise Will Marbella and his friends would hear the transmission. And then, God knows what they’d do.
Without slackening his pace, he pulled the transmitter from his pocket and pressed the third button on the right. Seventy-five feet behind him there was a satisfying explosion. The next button brought similar results—this time closer to his escape route. Maybe that would give them second thoughts about following him.
Still, images he didn’t want to see spun in his head. And all he could do was keep running, dodging into the protection of the trees, his breath searing his lungs as he tried to get away so that he could come back with reinforcements and save his wife and child.
THE GROUND SHOOK, and the sound of an explosion hit Amanda’s eardrums. Moments later it came again. Even as she cringed against the wall, she realized what must have happened. That was Matt, using the transmitter. Drawing the bad guys away from her.
She had to take advantage of the time he was buying her. For him. For herself. For their child.
Summoning every drop of inner strength she possessed, she crossed to the closet and found the kit Matt had helped her prepare in case she was in labor and they didn’t make it to the hospital in time. Snatching it up, she slipped the walkie-talkie and the transmitter inside, then slung the strap over her shoulder. Grabbing the revolver, she waddled toward the back of the house.
Only by force of will was she able to step into the sunshine—arms stiffly extended as she held the gun in front of her like a character in a TV cop show. Except that she’d never seen a cop with her shape, she thought wryly as she pictured what she must look like.
Seeing no one in the immediate vicinity, she lowered the gun, then started down the trail to the shelter, moving as fast as her advanced pregnancy would permit.
Matt had disguised the path, but there were rock stepping stones hidden among the tree roots and pine needles. She’d gotten only a couple of dozen yards from the house when another pain hit her, and she stopped, clamping her teeth together to keep from crying out.
The contraction held her immobile—a big round target—and she knew with terrible certainty that if one of the intruders came upon her now, there was nothing she could do to defend herself.
When the pain eased, she started off again, almost losing her footing as she missed a stone and slid on a patch of pine needles. But she managed to keep herself upright by grabbing on to rough tree bark, managed not to drop the gun or the pack.
Sucking in a breath, then another, she waited until she was feeling steady on her feet, then started off again. Finally she emerged from under the trees and rounded a rock outcropping that would block her from view, unless someone was stationed on the other side of the mountain valley.
Pausing, she took several deep breaths, half-amazed that she had made it this far without being apprehended.
Now came the hard part—the steep slope down to the entrance to the shelter. She had come this way more than a dozen times before. But not in the
past two weeks, she realized with a sudden pang. In her condition, two weeks was a long time. She was larger, bulkier and a lot less steady on her feet.
As she moved cautiously forward, the sun hit her in the face, and she lifted a hand to shade her eyes. It was then that she felt a tugging sensation inside her—and a gush of liquid between her legs.
With a gasp she stopped, reached to steady herself against the rock wall. Her water had broken. If there had been any doubt that she was in labor, that doubt was removed.
Frantically she looked around. Exposed, out in the open, vulnerable, she knew she had to get to safety. But the trail to the shelter seemed to have gotten steeper as she stood there.
Still, there was no choice now but to go forward. Gingerly, one step at a time, she started down. Half a yard onto the slope, she felt her foot sliding again, and stopped, managing to hold back a sob of frustration as she stood with her chest heaving. It was bad enough trying to do it when her center of gravity was so off balance. The fear of another contraction made it all the more terrifying.
Opting for caution, she eased to a sitting position, and moved herself along on her bottom, gripping the rough rock for support.
Finally the door was in sight, and she felt a rush of relief. Then, just as she was about to attempt the most dangerous few yards of the journey, two things happened simultaneously. Another pain gripped her and the sound of distant gunfire cracked the silence of the mountaintop.
MATT MIGHT HAVE PELTED headlong into the thicket where the SUV was hidden, but his training had made him stop behind a tree, pick up a rock and toss it about twenty feet from where he stood.
Immediately a spray of bullets erupted from the underbrush.
Pulling his arm back, he made a groaning sound as if he’d been hit and waited with his pulse pounding, wondering if he’d fooled the guy assigned to guard the vehicle.
“Forester?’’
The voice was unfamiliar. The tone was hard and unforgiving.
Matt waited, feeling each second tick by. When a patch of leaves rustled, he dodged around the tree and fired at where he judged the other man was hiding.
This time the groan was genuine—he hoped. For good measure he pumped four more shots into the area, then dodged to the next tree, encouraged by the lack of movement from the opposition. But he wasn’t going to be fooled by the same trick he’d used.
Instead of a direct approach, he made a wide circle around the area, moving as quietly as he could through the underbrush, approaching from behind. When he reached the vehicle, he saw a pair of legs. They belonged to a man dressed in fatigues lying face down in a pool of blood.
He paused to disengage the machine gun from the limp hand, latch the safety, and add the weapon to his own arsenal.
Moving with economy, he opened the driver’s door of the vehicle, started the engine, and pulled away from the screen of foliage, ducking low as he roared onto the dirt track. Taking the first curve at dangerous speed, he arrowed toward the road on the other side of the mountain, praying that he wasn’t going to run into a roadblock before he reached the public highway.
WHEN THE SOUND OF GUNFIRE had faded and her heart rate had slowed to a manageable pace, Amanda inched along the side of the cliff, coming to a stop in front of the shelter door.
Matt had changed the locking mechanism to a keypad, and she carefully pressed the numbers, giving a little prayer of thanks when she heard the lock click. But just as she started to pull on the heave door, another pain grabbed her. This time she tried to do the breathing exercises she’d practiced with the childbirth video she’d bought. Matt had watched with her, coaching her. But he wasn’t here now. The memory of the gunfire and the thought of him out there fighting for his life choked off her breath, and she went through the remainder of the contraction in a state of rising hysteria.
By the end she was sobbing, the tears coursing down her cheeks as she pulled open the heavy door, threw herself inside the shelter, then turned to push the barrier closed.
The lock snapped behind her, and she tumbled into the darkness. She and the baby were safe. But what about her husband?
Fresh tears filled her eyes, and she swiped her arm across her face. She couldn’t fall apart, she told herself sternly. There were still things she had to do—things that might make the difference between life and death.
Feeling along the wall, she found the shelves where Matt had stacked supplies. A large flashlight was supposed to be within easy reach, and she found it after only a few seconds of fumbling in the dark. Switching it on, she moved to the back of the cavern, where the generator was located and started it going.
As it came on, the overhead lights kicked in, and she could hear the fan for the ventilation system, as well.
Turning off the flashlight, she looked around, getting her bearings. Matt had filled the refuge with state-of-the art equipment. There were four television screens on one wall, and she switched them on, giving herself views of the surrounding area.
The second two screens made her gasp. Ordinarily they showed only a view of rocks and trees. Now she was treated to the sight of ten hard-faced men, wearing camouflage outfits and carrying machine guns, moving stealthily from tree to tree, sneaking up on the house.
As she watched, she saw something move in the bushes near one of the groups. The men saw it, too, because they turned and sprayed the underbrush with machine-gun fire.
Then one moved forward, pushed the underbrush away with his foot and revealed the body of a doe.
Sick with horror, she watched them laughing and gesturing toward the limp body. Maybe they’d thought it was Matt in there. Maybe they simply liked to kill for the pleasure of it.
When Matt had showed her how to set off the explosive charges, she’d wondered if she could really push the buttons if she were under attack. Now she felt her anger solidifying as she watched the cruel men start off again, thinking they were closing in on her.
She knew the area, knew the exact location of the cameras and could relate the images she was seeing to the explosives that Matt had set around the property. The transmitter was in her bag, and she pulled it out. Her hand shook only a little as she studied the buttons, then watched the screen intently. Her bottom lip clamped between her teeth, she pressed one of the buttons, then another.
The response was immediate. The ground shook, a shower of earth and stone erupted on the screens, and a wave of sound reached her, reverberating through the rock above and around her.
But before she could find out if she’d stopped any of the invaders, another contraction hit her—longer and fiercer than any that had come before, and she pressed her shoulders against the rough wall of the shelter, this time unable to hold back a moan as the pain caught her in its vise.
IN THE DISTANCE Matt heard two explosions. He hoped that was Amanda, setting off the charges from inside the shelter. But there was no way he could be sure and nothing he could do besides keep going, his eyes glued to the odometer. He had told himself he had to be ten miles from the house before he called Randolph Security.
The phone rang when he still had two miles to go. Will Marbella again, he thought with a curse, planning to fill him in on the latest developments up on the mountain. Or, more likely, trying to unnerve him with a pack of lies.
Teeth clenched, he let the shrill ringing of the phone curdle the air inside the car as he sped toward New Hampton, his hands clenched on the wheel.
AMANDA ROUSED HERSELF to do what she knew had to be done.
Pulling off her ruined dress, she kicked it into a corner, then used some of the bottled water and soap to wash the dirt off her legs from when she’d come down the incline on her bottom. Once she’d cleaned herself off, she pulled out another maternity shift from the supplies on the shelves and slipped it over her head.
She had just finished when a flash of movement on one of the TV screens caught her eye.
It was a man, coming down the incline toward the shelter—limping, but carrying a mac
hine gun. She sucked in a breath as she studied his face. It was the man they had seen in the L.A. restaurant. The man who had called them on the phone.
Marbella.
She peered at the screen, trying to judge his position. But another contraction caught her, capturing her full attention. And when it was over, her pursuer had disappeared from view.
MATT SQUEALED around another curve, then floored the gas pedal on a relatively straight stretch of road. A whirring noise filled his head, growing in intensity until he realized that it wasn’t something manufactured by his brain. It was coming from above. His heart stopped, then started up in double time as he recognized the beating of blades above him. Helicopter blades. Again!
“God no,’’ he shouted into the interior of the SUV, pressing his foot on the accelerator, even as he knew there was no hope of escape. He and Amanda had outfoxed the sheriff the first night at the ranch, but that had been in the dark—not in broad daylight. Not when the pursuers already had him spotted.
Well, he amended, he could pull onto the shoulder and drive into the woods. Ditch the truck. Maybe he could even get away—if the cover was thick enough. But that strategy wasn’t going to do Amanda one damn bit of good.
Still, he wasn’t going to simply give up. So he kept driving until the chopper swooped low, circled the truck and set down where the woods thinned out along the road in front of him.
Stamping on the brake, he squealed to a stop on the shoulder and drew his gun as he leaped from behind the wheel.
A dark-haired man was already descending from the chopper, both hands raised above his head. He was unarmed and holding a white handkerchief in his right fist and shouting something Matt couldn’t hear.
A flag of truce? It must be some kind of trick. Marbella trying to get him to drop his guard. Still with his own gun trained on the man’s chest, Matt waited, his finger poised on the trigger.
Then the face registered. It was Hunter Kelley. With a sick feeling, Matt realized he had come within millimeters of mowing down his friend. He also knew that Hunter must have realized that chance he was taking.
