“Don’t be stupid, John.”
“Three…two…”
“John,” the man said with irritation, “stay put, will you!”
“One. Time’s up. Oh, and you better make sure nothing bad happens to my car. Goodbye, unknown caller.” Smoke chucked the phone out the window, then hung his face out there and said, “Now it’s just me, the wind, and the madness.” Sitting on the frame of the door, he stuck his body outside, stretched out his long arms, and grabbed ahold of the giant magnet’s cable.
“Here we go.”
He pulled himself outside and started to climb hand over hand up the rope of steel. The one-hundred-and-fifty-mile-an-hour winds were ripping at his clothes and face. Up he went, shimmying up the thirty feet of cord between him and the chopper.
A couple of heads peeked out of the chopper’s cargo bay, gaped at him, and looked at one another. One of the men started laughing and shaking his head. The man waved another man into view, who peered over. He was burly and bearded and wearing green goggles. He gave Smoke the finger and vanished back inside.
Over a thousand feet up in the air, the chopper started to descend toward the ground.
Aw, crap. They’re going to land early.
Halfway up the cord of steel, Smoke weighed his options. If he were to guess, he’d say they were more than ready to capture him with numbers and plenty of weapons. They’d probably land somewhere with reinforcements. Whoever they were, they weren’t stupid. They had a backup plan. At least he was safely out of his car for now. But at best, that only bought him time. He looked up at the goggled goons.
They had smirks on their faces.
Smoke shimmied back down to the roof of the Camaro, offered them a salute, and jumped into the air.
CHAPTER 8
Plummeting into the dark of the night, Smoke fumbled for the ripcord of his parachute. He’d almost forgotten he had one stowed away in the back of the Camaro. He’d put it there years ago when he and some other guys used to skydive from time to time. This parachute wasn’t your standard fare. It had a smaller rectangular canopy designed for making patterns in the air. His fingers locked around the rip cord handle, and he yanked it.
The chute popped open instantly, slowing his descent. He’d hit the ground or something any second. He aimed the chute as best he could for a stretch of road on the other side of a long row of trees. “Not going to make it.”
He crashed into the upper limbs and tumbled through the branches before the parachute cords jerked him to a stop.
“Oof!”
Smoke dangled about twenty feet off the ground. He found a knife and started cutting away his cords. The first slice sent him swinging into a tree trunk. Hanging on to a branch with one hand, he cut the rest of the parachute pack free and climbed down to the ground. He spat pine needles from his mouth and dusted off the small, tacky branches from his clothes. He had a few nasty scrapes on his arms and elbows.
A small sliver of wood had lanced his thigh.
Smoke plucked it out, saying, “Barely a flesh wound.”
The chopper’s propellers beat the air, but they weren’t close to Smoke. The darkness had become his ally, and it would take some time before they’d pinpoint his location. The black chute canopy would make spotting him even harder. He’d turned the tables on them. Cheated whoever it was out of whatever they wanted.
And Smoke liked that.
Never in his life was he ever going to be someone’s prisoner if he could help it. He weaved into the forest and made his way toward the road he’d seen before he crashed.
If you want to capture me, you’re going to have to earn it.
Staying within the tree line, he walked parallel to the edge of the two-lane stretch of road, miles outside of DC. Traffic was coming and going. The chopper’s searchlight cast down, and it made its rounds like a bat in the air. Smoke could still see his car drifting underneath and behind the chopper like a small metal banner. It would disappear into the tops of the trees only to reappear again seconds later.
He heard a click, and the car went into a silent free fall that stopped Smoke’s heart for a moment.
No!
A crash in the distant woodland followed.
Great Dane! I just painted that and tuned it up!
Fists balled up, he resumed his trek along the edge of the forest. Kidnapping him was one strike, but totaling his cherished car was two. He watched the chopper hovering above the site where they’d dropped the Camaro for about five minutes before it took off again.
He wanted to go back to the car and see what he could salvage. But someone would be coming. Or waiting. He wasn’t about to risk it.
Keep moving. Put as much distance between them and you as you can.
He’d made it about another half a mile up the road when he looked back and a white SUV pulled off on the side opposite from him. Toward the Camaro. Three men got out and vanished into the woods.
Man, they’re quick.
He stood back under the trees, watching the vehicle. Part of him wanted to go in for a closer look. Take the fight to them. Beat the information out of one of the goons who worked for the man coming for him.
He gave it a few minutes. The driver of the white SUV was still behind the wheel. He had his arm hanging out the window with a cigarette burning between his fingers.
I’ve got an idea. And it’s a bad one.
Smoke reached into his jeans pocket and slid out a thin slip of paper that looked like a Band-Aid. It was one of the tracking devices that he and Guppy had been working on. A flexible, transparent wireless network of circuits that could be tracked with a radio signal. Sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn’t.
We really should be making a fortune off these. I think parents would like them. We just need a good name for it.
He backtracked, crossed the road about a quarter mile behind the SUV, and snaked his way into the forest. Following the edge on cat’s feet, he lined himself up to the rear of the SUV. Closing his eyes, he tilted his head. He didn’t hear any men moving in the forest. The Camaro had been dropped about half a mile into the woods from where they stood, if he had to guess.
Sounds all clear.
He opened his eyes and fixed them on the vehicle’s passenger side-view mirror. Through the tinted windows he could still make out the man in the driver’s seat. So long as he couldn’t see the driver in the side-view mirror, he should be good. He waited until oncoming traffic started to pass. As soon as the next car zoomed by the vehicle, Smoke scampered right behind the back of the car and hunkered down. Quickly, he peeled the Band-Aid tracker from its seal and stuck it onto the license plate. He memorized the plate number, too.
“Hey Jim!” called a voice out of the woods. A man was approaching. “We made contact. Now what?”
Smoke crawled under the vehicle.
“I’ll text. Hold on,” said the driver, Jim. There was about thirty seconds before he spoke again. “We’re going to stay on it all night, just in case that stuntman comes back.”
Stuntman? Me? I like it.
“All night? Hell, it’s early. Say, if we’re gonna be squatting on that heap all night, we’re going to need some eats.” The guy sounded a little stupid. And annoying. “Some burgers will do.”
“Burgers,” the driver said with the rugged voice of a truck driver. “I’m not going to buy you any damn burgers. Now get back out in those woods and stop clowning around.”
Smoke’s fingers were just inches from the man’s toes. The laces were long and dragging the ground.
Sloppy troop.
“Look, Jim. Just go get us some hamdamburgers. That stuntman ain’t gonna come within a mile of this place. That piece of junk he drove ain’t worth anything. The ammo in it was worth more than the car … and there was some nice guns too. What is this guy anyway, some super trooper?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. Just get your ass back out there,” the driver said.
“Go get some burgers!”
The engine started up. Smoke’s eyes widened.
“Fine,” the driver said. “I’m going. Just get back out there until I call you when I’m back. Oh, and by the way, you’re a real pain in the ass, Harvey.”
“Yeah, I know. My wife tells me every day, but at least my girlfriend likes me just the way I am.”
Smoke exhaled and flattened down on the ground.
The vehicle revved up and started to pull away. Harvey yelled after it, “Oh, and hold the pickles! I hate pickles!”
The SUV pulled out, leaving Smoke flat on his back and completely exposed.
CHAPTER 9
Looking up at Harvey, Smoke said, “What’s up with the goggles?”
Harvey’s eyes filled the goggles that he wore. Jaw dropping, he went for his gun.
Smoke kicked Harvey’s legs out from under him and pinned him on the ground.
The pair wrestled for a moment, and a gunshot went off.
Pop!
Smoke wrenched the gun free and slung it into the grass. He slugged Harvey in the jaw twice, knocking the man out cold. “You just had to shoot your gun off, didn’t you.”
A car slowed to a stop beside Smoke. It was a minivan, and the woman rolled the window down and said, “Is he okay? Are you all right?”
Gunfire erupted from the woods.
Blat! Blat! Blat!
Men in tactical vests were coming right for Smoke.
The red-haired woman in the minivan hit the gas, screeched the tires, and sped away.
Smoke returned fire, dashed across the road, and ran into the woods. The manhunt was on again. He could already hear the chopper closing in.
Man, these goggled freaks have it together. I guess that’s the price I pay for being greedy.
He heard the footsteps of two men giving chase. One of them was on a radio. “We’ve got eyes on him. He ran into the woods near our location.”
Smoke took cover in bushes behind the trees and waited. The pursuers navigated the woods with tactical flashlights on the ends of their assault rifles, making it easy to see exactly where they were.
Smoke thanked his lucky stars he hadn’t been hit when they had the drop on him. Even well-trained men would miss when they were excited. Eyes closed, he became one with nature and listened to the soft footsteps that were quickly coming his way.
Two men, spread about ten feet apart. Both breathing heavy. See them before they see you.
The goon nearest him was almost right on top of him. Booted feet crept over the soft ground and wandered by. Smoke opened his eyes. The man’s back was to him. He rose like a ghost from the grave and cracked the man in the temple with the butt of his pistol. He caught the man before he fell and laid him softly on the ground. He turned off the flashlight on the man’s weapon, shut off the man’s radio, and searched him until he found his phone. He’d lost sight of the other mercenary. The other light was gone.
Not every thug is stupid. He’s buried himself somewhere. Time to play hide and seek.
A breeze rustled the branches in the trees. The chopper whizzed overhead and shined its spotlight through the branches. It was the perfect time to move quickly through all of the noise. He darted behind another tree and peered around it.
A goggled man was face to face with him. A knife slashed at Smoke’s throat.
He jerked his head back but still caught a slice across his chin. “So you want to do it the old-fashioned way,” Smoke said.
“Why not?” The man stepped out of the shadows into full view. He was long limbed like a distance runner, with a twinkling long blade in his hand. “This is the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Now put your pretty little gun away and we’ll go toe to toe like real men.”
Smoke stuffed his gun into his holster. “Believe it or not, that’s actually comforting.” He held up his hands and wiggled his fingers. “This is probably a better option for you, seeing how bad you guys are at shooting. Maybe it’s the goggles.”
The man shrugged his narrow shoulders and tapped his goggles with the back side of his knife. “Perhaps, but I’m still not going to show any mercy on you.”
“It’s your beat down,” Smoke said, drawing up his fists. “Let’s dance.”
Slick as a snake, the man used his long reach and stabbed straight for Smoke’s chest.
Slapping the weapon aside, Smoke leaned in and gave the attacker a bellyful of fist.
Air exploded from the man’s mouth, and he sagged over like a wilting plant.
“Say, that’s a nice chin you have there.”
Groaning, the man looked up at Smoke with agony in his eyes just as Smoke laid him out cold.
Smoke took off the man’s goggles and pulled them down around his own neck.
I need to see what these things are all about, but it will have to wait till later.
Waltzing through the woods with the chopper hovering somewhere overhead, he dialed Sid’s number on the first goon’s phone.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hiya, Sid.”
“John? What’s going on? Is that a helicopter I hear, or are you cruising down the highway with the windows rolled down?”
“Are you okay?” he asked with his eyes following the chopper skimming the trees above.
“I’m fine. What’s going on, John?”
Speaking above the whipping winds from the chopper, he said, “Well, someone’s after me, and I don’t know who.”
“Is it the Drake?”
“No, I don’t think so. Someone else. Look Sid, go to our safe place, okay? I’ll meet you there in twelve hours.”
“John! John! Smoke, don’t you dare hang up that phone,” she said.
“See you soon,” he replied. He hung up and threw the phone over his left shoulder.
I just have to get away from these goggled fools.
Smoke glanced into the sky and laid eyes on the chopper. Men were rappelling from the chopper down onto the road.
I don’t know who these clowns are, but I’m not sticking around to find out. I’ve got a date in twelve hours.
He took off running.
CHAPTER 10
Sprinting through the woods with branches stinging his face, Smoke pushed for distance from his pursuers. The path he took paralleled the highway, and he could see through the foliage the white big rigs that had pursued him before. They pulled onto the road and came to a stop. Men were shouting back and forth at each other, and assault rifles were being charged up to fire.
All this over me? Why?
That was the odd part of it. The stink of the Drake wasn’t on these men. Nor did they smell of the European sect called Guermo. This was some private army. Mercenaries. Veteran soldiers, and they didn’t seem to want him dead. So what did they want? Was it just him, or was Sidney a part of this too?
She sounded fine when I called. No edge to her voice or anything. I can only hope she’s okay.
Moving as fast as he could, there wasn’t much Smoke could do to hide his tracks. The men coming after him would have to go slower to find his trail, but it wouldn’t be hard for a seasoned tracker to find. On a whim, he grabbed the goggles bouncing up and down on his throat and slipped them over his eyes.
The landscape brightened. The goggles worked much like the sunglasses Mal had given him to help see in the dark.
Hmmm.
He scuttled through the brush and came to a stop at the creek that gently cut through the terrain. By jumping to the other side, he left a deep impression in the mud, then took off a dozen yards into the woods, climbed up a fallen tree that ended on the other side of the creek, and lowered himself into the ankle-deep waters and headed upstream.
That ought to buy me a little extra time.
He skimmed over the water on the rocks jutting up above the brook as best he could, like a frog hopping from lily pad to lily pad. A hundred feet into the laborious trek, he heard the voices of pursuit drifting up the waterway and looked back. Men with tactical lights were in pursuit. Three beams of lig
ht in all. They paused for several seconds before they ventured across into the woods.
That should give me a few extra minutes, maybe longer if I’m lucky.
But the bright beam of the chopper’s spotlight started up the creek and was coming right for him.
That’s what I get for relying on luck.
Smoke found a cove in the creek bank and pushed himself up underneath the long overhanging grass until the spotlight passed. Coated in a new layer of fresh mud and soaked to his knees, he resumed his venture. He followed a straight line until the creek bent back toward the highway.
By land or by sea?
Absent the sound of his pursuers, he opted to stay in the water. About fifteen minutes later he was facing the highway, where a small water tunnel burrowed beneath the road. From the cover of the tall grass, he peeked up at the highway. As far as he could tell, he was close to a mile away from the trucks. The chopper was still making its rounds overhead, with the spotlight glaring into the trees.
Follow the water to freedom.
He slipped back down into the creek, got down on his hands and knees, and crawled through the pitch-black tunnel. About a minute later, he came to the tunnel’s end and waited. A moment later, the helicopter’s spotlight crossed over the creek again. It hovered in the same spot, crossing over the stretch of highway at the points where the creek tunnel entered and exited.
Come on, black bird, nothing to see here. Keep moving.
The chopper drifted away.
Finally.
Without wasting any time, Smoke darted down the creek for another half mile before cutting into the woodland again. The area around DC wasn’t anything complicated so far as knowing where he was. He wasn’t close to the major interstate but instead the older, less traveled highways. If he had to hoof it into DC and meet Sid, that would be just fine. He could do it in a few hours. He just wondered if anyone else would be looking for him. The police or perhaps the FBI.
I hate to do it, but I might have to borrow someone’s wheels to blend in and go. Man, I can’t believe my Camaro is totaled. I hope comprehensive insurance will cover it.
The Supernatural Bounty Hunter Files Collector's Set: Books 1-10: Urban Fantasy Shifter Series Page 83
