by Gayle Wilson
“Who is it?” he asked in Spanish.
“There’s a message for you, señor.”
“Slide it under the door,” Chase ordered.
“It’s the telephone. Someone on the telephone for you. You must take it in the lobby.”
“Sam,” Samantha whispered. “I forgot to call Sam.”
“I’ll be down,” Chase called to the messenger. “Ask them to hold on.”
He got out of bed and walked over to the window. He spent a second studying the street below in the thin light of dawn. Then he recrossed the small room and held out the gun to her.
“Keep it pointed at the door while I’m gone and shoot anybody who comes through it.”
“Even you?” she couldn’t resist asking.
“Not if you can possibly help it,” Chase suggested, a subtle hint of amusement in his tone.
Maybe that’s why he’s good at this, she thought. It’s all a game to him. Dangerous and exciting.
“I’ll identify myself before I open the door,” he conceded. “Think you can recognize my voice?”
“Yes,” she said. Anywhere. In any lifetime.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can. Don’t let anything happen to Sam’s money.”
“Okay,” she promised, sounding a lot more confident than she felt. This was not a game to her. Mandy’s life was riding on it. Maybe that was why Chase could do this time after time. After all, it wasn’t anything to him. It wasn’t his—Except this time, she thought, before he interrupted that chain of thinking.
“Be careful,” he warned. “Don’t let anybody else in, no matter what they tell you.”
He slipped the chain off the door and looked out into the dark hallway before he disappeared. She raised her knees and, holding the gun in both hands to keep it steady, she propped her wrists on top of her bent knees, lining the muzzle up with the center of the closed door. It was just Sam, she told herself again. Nothing to get excited about. He’d probably called the three hotels in town until he’d located them. Just Sam.
But despite her efforts, the hope that had taken a beating yesterday came back so strongly it filled her chest, making it hard to breathe. Please, God, she prayed. The same endless litany of hope she had prayed since Wednesday afternoon.
IT WAS MAYBE FIVE minutes before she heard Chase’s voice.
“It’s me. I’m going to open the door.”
“Okay,” she called. She kept the muzzle of the gun centered, but when the door opened, he was alone. She waited until he’d closed and relocked it before she relaxed.
“Was it Sam?”
“We’ve got a location,” he said, his eyes meeting hers.
“A location. You mean…for the exchange? To get Mandy?”
Chase nodded.
“How far away?”
“It’s pretty isolated. Dirt or gravel roads part of the way. Maybe three hours.”
She felt like shouting. Screaming. Hugging him. But she didn’t. She nodded instead, fighting to contain her elation.
“We’ll need to get gas and buy some water,” he added.
“Water?”
“Just in case,” he assured her. He walked over to the bed and squatted down to pull the suitcases that contained the ransom out from under it. “And I think we’ll keep these with us up front.”
“You think it was the guy you saw yesterday? The man you recognized?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to say. The voice didn’t sound familiar, but the connection was pretty bad.”
“But whoever called asked for you by name?”
“Apparently he described me. It wasn’t hard for the manager to narrow it down,” Chase said. With his coloring and the scarcity of other guests at the small hotel, that would be true.
“I should call Sam,” she suggested. “Let him know what’s going on.”
Still balancing on his toes beside the bed, Chase looked up at her. “Why don’t you wait until we’ve made the exchange. It might be safer that way.”
“Safer?”
“The same rules still apply. The fewer people who know anything about this, the better. There’s always the chance someone could overhear if you call from downstairs.”
“What are the odds of that?” she said dismissingly. She knew her father would be worried. She should have called him last night. It had been cruel not to.
“Whatever they are, we’re not going to take the chance.”
“Your decision?”
“That’s what you’re paying me for. To make the decisions.” He stood. “Get your things together. This time we have a deadline.”
“They gave you a time to meet them?”
“Eleven o’clock.”
She glanced at her watch. It was already six-thirty. The kidnappers hadn’t allowed them much slack, especially if Chase was right about the condition of the roads. Still, it took her far longer than she wanted to manage her boots. Her hands were shaking, but she worked at not letting that be obvious, at not letting him see how nervous she was.
“Where are we going?” she asked when she’d finished. She stood and slung the carryall over her shoulder.
“A little mining camp called San Miguel del Norte.”
She shook her head. “Do you know it?”
“Only from the map. It looks like the end of civilization, the jumping-off place for the civilized world. Somewhere in Las Maderas.”
“Las Maderas?” she repeated, trying to place the name.
“Sierra del Carmen. The Mexican half of the Dead Horse Mountains.”
“Then…That’s almost back into the States, Chase. Why there and not down here?”
“Because we won’t be disturbed, maybe,” Chase guessed, shrugging away the question he couldn’t be expected to have an answer for. In the desolate Sierra del Carmen they wouldn’t run into anybody else, that was for sure.
“Did you ask them about Mandy?”
“She’s fine. He said that a couple of times. Sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“Did you ask to—” She stopped the question just before she blurted it out, gave it all away. She had almost asked Chase if he’d spoken to Mandy, almost given away that she wasn’t a baby. Of course, in a matter of a few hours whatever she said wouldn’t matter anyway. As Sam had reminded her, Chase McCullar was no fool. He’d figure it out soon enough. She’d deal with that when the time came, she had decided. One crisis at a time.
“Did I what?” Chase asked, picking the gun up off the bed and pushing it into the concealed holster in the small of his back.
“Nothing,” she said. “It wasn’t important. I’m ready whenever you are.”
HE HAD CERTAINLY BEEN right about the condition of the roads, Chase thought. The highway leading north out of town had been paved and fairly well-maintained. There was the occasional rough spot, but nothing too bad. They had traveled less than half of the distance indicated by the map to their destination, however, when the road seemed to run out. It didn’t happen all at once. First there were patches where the runoff from the heavy rains had washed potholes in the pavement. Then there were areas where the paving had disappeared altogether to be replaced by gravel, and finally there was no longer any blacktop at all.
After they made the turn to the west that the map seemed to indicate would lead to their destination, they entered the foothills of the rugged, almost-pristine range known as Sierra del Carmen—Las Maderas. As they had climbed, the vegetation had begun to change. There was still plenty of mesquite and yucca, but there was also shrub live oak and manzanita and desert olive.
Dead Horse Mountains. Chase wondered where that more colorful English name had originated. He hoped the terrain where they’d been sent wasn’t as ominous as that made it sound.
The road, which had climbed steadily for some time, had narrowed even more. It was deeply rutted from the summer rains. The jolting grew so bad at times that Samantha put her hand against the roof of the Land Rover to brace herself. To accommodate the worsening conditions,
Chase slowed until Samantha was glancing at her watch every few minutes.
“Relax,” Chase said. “We’ve got plenty of time.”
“How much farther?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe ten miles. The maps are a little vague about distances up here.”
Chase had been hoping that the trail didn’t run out before they got to wherever they were supposed to go. That was always a possibility, and he didn’t relish hiking across any of this country. Not without provisions and a guide who knew exactly where he was going. And not with Samantha, he thought, glancing over to see that she was still braced against the roughness of the ride.
The narrow road churned upward now between rugged rock faces and increasingly sheer drops. Given the number of blind curves and places where the natural cut they were following rimmed precariously near one of those drop-offs, Chase knew he was driving far faster than conditions warranted. He had just thought that it might be smart to slow down, that it would be better that they be a few minutes late than that they not arrive at all, when it happened.
He realized, when he had time to relive it later, that he had subconsciously been aware of the sound of the rifle shot that blew out the rear tire. At the time he hadn’t known what it was, but he knew something was wrong as he wrestled with the steering wheel, which suddenly seemed to come alive in his hands.
He might have known something was seriously wrong, but still, given the carefully chosen location where it happened, he couldn’t do a damn thing about. The Land Rover swerved and the outside wheels slipped off the edge of the roadway and over the drop-off, which was, of course, exactly the effect the single shot had been intended to produce. They never had a chance.
Chapter Six
The Land Rover rolled at least twice, bouncing down the side of the incline almost, it seemed, in slow motion before the front end came to rest with stunning force against the side of a massive boulder.
After the banging jolts of their descent, the silence that surrounded them when the Land Rover had finally been brought to a stop was eerie. It encouraged the lethargy that had stolen over Chase, almost an inability to move, an inability to think, to make any further effort. Or maybe it was simply gratitude to find he was alive or a need to savor that surprising discovery for a moment.
“Samantha?” he asked, as soon as his mind began to gear back up to face what had happened. He knew he would manage to deal with anything else as long as Samantha was all right.
“I’m okay,” she answered reassuringly.
He turned his head carefully, and he could see her. The car was tilted upward, the bottom of the front end wedged against the rock that had stopped them. The roof had been pushed into the interior during the rolls, and it was crowding their heads, but the supports hadn’t buckled. That was the only reason they were still alive. Sometime in the descent, part of the car or one of the suitcases, which had probably become flying projectiles, had struck his neck and left shoulder with numbing force. But at least they were both still alive.
Samantha’s upper body was secured to the seat by her shoulder harness, but her legs had slipped toward him, following the downward slope of the car, so that her knees were resting on his right thigh.
“We have to get out of here,” he said.
It would have to be through the passenger door, crawling out her side of the Land Rover, which had become the top. But in the process of doing that, he also was aware, they would be making themselves targets for whoever was out there.
There had been a lot of places above the roadbed where someone could conceal himself to take the shot that had caused the wreck. But they might be slightly protected now by the sloping sides of the shallow ravine they’d landed in. Their best chance to get out of the car, to get the ransom away, was to do it before the shooter had time to reposition himself at another vantage point where he could get a better look down into the small canyon.
Chase released his seat belt and reached back blindly for the handle of the smaller of the two suitcases, the feminine one, which was lying on top of the shattered back window of the driver’s side. He managed to pull it into the front seat with him, but there wouldn’t be. enough room to get the other one up here because, he realized, Samantha was in the way.
“Go on,” he ordered again. “We have to get out of the car.
She released her belt and immediately slid out of the slanting seat and into the suitcase that was now between them. The force of her fall banged his shoulder into the side of the Land Rover. He carefully eased his body around so his back was against the twisted metal of the door, not only in an effort to protect his injury, but to give him some leverage to support the suitcase.
“Get up on top of the bag and then climb out Keep as low as you can. Whatever you do, keep your head down and stay behind the car. Use it as a shield.”
“What about you?” she asked, trying to obey. She had clambered to her knees and was trying to maintain her balance on top of the shifting suitcase. He grabbed the bottom edge of the bag with his right hand to steady it, to provide a more stable platform.
“I’m right behind you. Just go. Get the hell out.”
It wasn’t graceful. She struggled to open the door for endless seconds. There was nothing Chase could do to help her, but finally she pushed it upward and climbed out. His vision blocked by the suitcase he was holding, he couldn’t tell if Samantha had followed his advice about keeping her head down, but at least he hadn’t heard another shot. And if they were very lucky…
He pushed the smaller case up and powered it out the door she’d left open, stifling a gasp as the resultant pain in his shoulder sliced through him like a bolt of lightning. But he heard the case bump to the ground. As he reached into the back seat, trying to find the handle of the other bag, he could hear Samantha pulling the first suitcase across the ground to get it nearer to her. She’d have to carry it if they got a chance to make a run for it. He couldn’t carry both of them and the water.
He finally located the second suitcase and shoved it through the open door, the movement even more painful this time. He wasn’t feeling too optimistic about the condition of his left arm and shoulder. The initial numbness was wearing off and what had replaced it wasn’t comforting. Or comfortable. That was all he needed, he thought bitterly. A busted arm.
It was taking too long to do what he had to do, he knew. He seemed to be moving in slow motion. Too much time, allowing the shooter to reposition, to line up his sights on another target.
Forcing that thought into the back of his mind, he reached for the water he’d bought, which was in a plastic gallon jug. That was not nearly enough, he knew, not for this country, not even in late summer when the rains had been the heaviest and there might still be pools formed by their runoff. But then the gallon was only supposed to be for an emergency. And their present situation might just qualify, he thought with a touch of macabre humor.
“Samantha,” he called, praying she was right there on the other side of the upturned vehicle. Hoping she was the only one out there.
“I’m here.”
“The water. I’m going to hold the jug up in the opening. Reach up and grab the handle. Keep your head down.”
“Okay,” she agreed.
He could see her hand meet his over the handle, and he let the jug go. Everything out but him, he thought. Everything—
There was no doubt about the sound this time. The jug exploded first, spraying them both with the precious water, and then the bullet that had gone through the thin plastic ricocheted off a rock somewhere, a distinctive whine that cut into the echoing report of the shot itself.
“Keep down,” he ordered.
Sound played tricks in rock canyons, so that he couldn’t tell exactly where that one had come from. Maybe it was just a lucky shot. Maybe they hadn’t been aiming for the jug at all. Maybe whoever was shooting at them hadn’t seen Samantha crawl out, wouldn’t know there was anyone alive down here. He knew he was making up positive s
cenarios because otherwise the deadly accuracy of those two shots was pretty scary. First the tire and then the water. Two shots and two targets taken out.
Whoever was shooting might decide just to wait them out. Pick them off if they moved. Maybe he and Samantha should play dead until night and then try to get out. Even as he thought that, he realized it wouldn’t work. Whoever was shooting at the car wouldn’t give them that chance. Whoever it was would eventually come down here—before night. It was the money they were after, and even if they believed the occupants of the Land Rover were dead, they’d still make the descent.
He struggled to turn his aching body in the cramped space of the damaged car, trying to get his legs under him. Finally he managed. He braced his boots against the crushed driver’s-side door and, reaching up, put his hands on the outside of what had been the passenger seat. He surged up and over the bottom of the opened passenger door, ignoring the pain, and fell awkwardly on top of Samantha and the two cases.
There were at least four shots this time, maybe more, ringing out in quick succession, the exact number disguised by the echoes and by the whining ricochets. He crawled up over Samantha, pressing his body down over the entire length of hers. Covering her. Protecting.
A sliver of rock stung his forehead, and he put his left cheek down against hers and at the same time, held his right hand, fingers spread, beside their faces, trying to shield them both. He could feel her heart racing beneath his. Too fast. Terrified. He didn’t blame her. He was pretty damn terrified himself.
Finally the noise of the ricochets stopped. Waiting in the silence that followed was worse. He still believed the upturned Land Rover was between them and the shooter because every bullet had seemed to strike it first.
He turned his head very slowly, looking to his right, trying to find cover somewhere on the slope of the far side of the ravine, the one opposite the roadway they’d plunged off. There wasn’t much. Some scattered boulders, far smaller than the one that had caught the car. Plenty of yucca. Clumps of needlegrass and prickly pear. He angled his chin down slightly, looking toward the back of the car, and found something, the best cover he probably could hope for in this country.
