Adirondack Attack

by Jenna Kernan

  “You two need a lift?”

  Accent was right, Erin thought.

  “Appreciate it,” said Dalton. His voice was calm and even.

  Erin doubted she was even capable of speech. She was good at the game of hide-and-seek, but less comfortable with the bravado required for confrontation. She thought of Rylee Hockings and straightened her spine. Her feet stilled and her jaw tightened.

  Dalton moved to the truck, opening the passenger-side door. He motioned to Erin.

  She spoke to the driver, her voice a squeaky, unrecognizable thing. “Okay if I put the pack in the back?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Dalton took the pack and placed it in the truck bed. When he turned around, he had his pistol in his hand. He slid that hand back into his pocket and motioned for her to get in.

  Dalton slipped in beside her and pulled the door shut.

  “This here is Lulu. She’s my copilot,” said the driver.

  The small pug moved to sniff Erin and then used her as a boardwalk to sniff Dalton’s extended hand. She wondered if the canine smelled gun oil.

  “Where you two heading?” The driver flicked on his wipers to push away the settling dust from his windshield and then set them in motion.

  “Minerva.”

  “Oh, that’s right on my way.”

  Erin let Dalton do the small talk. He’d always been better at it. She focused on the driver’s hands as she wondered what he had in the pockets of his denim jacket.

  “Surprised to see you two out here.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Dalton.

  “Ain’t ya heard about the trouble?”

  “No.”

  “Where you been then, you ain’t seen the helicopters and K-9 units. Yesterday this place looked like a TV movie set with all the cop cars. They all showed up like buzzards circling a dead woodchuck.”

  “Why? What happened?” Dalton asked.

  “I don’t know how to tell you this, but there’s some maniac out here killing campers in their tents. Husband and wife. Right down that way on the trail to the trestle bridge.”

  Erin tried to look shocked but felt her face burning. This was why she had landed nothing more than chorus in the high school plays. Her acting left so much to be desired.

  “That’s terrible,” she managed.

  “That ain’t all. There’s a whole party of kayakers two days overdue. DEC’s been out searching, but so far they’re just gone.”

  She glanced out the window as they drove along at a break in the forest revealing a wide-open stretch of flat mossy land.

  “What I heard is they ain’t found hide nor hair of those tourists.”

  The mention of hides provided Erin with a perfect picture of Carol Walton’s mangled body. The rest of the faces of her party flashed before her. Her stomach gave an unexpected and violent pitch, and she had to cover her mouth with her hand.

  “That’s odd,” said Dalton as he gave Erin’s arm a squeeze. She needed to get hold of herself before she gave them away.

  Dalton frowned, his look concerned, before he shifted his attention back to the driver, the possible threat.

  “It’s all been in the papers.” The driver frowned. “Course you wouldn’t see them out here, I suppose.”

  Lulu settled back to the man’s crowded lap, the wheel just missing the top of her tawny hide.

  “That’s why I picked you both up. Something terrible is going on up here. I’m Percy, by the way.”

  Dalton nodded and gave over their real names.

  “A pleasure,” said Percy. His smile dropped away as he saw something before them. “Oh, okay, they’re still here.”

  Dalton’s gaze flicked away, and Erin looked through the dusty windshield.

  Before them was a roadblock consisting of two DEC vehicles. One was an SUV and the other a pickup truck parked at such an angle that approaching drivers would have to go around them. This was impossible on the northern side because of the bog. The open stretch might look like a meadow with brush and flowers and even clumps of tall cotton grass, but there were no meadows in these woods. Any cleared space was intentionally cleared by men, or it was clear because it was impossible for trees to grow there. That was the case here for, though the ground looked solid, it was in fact a thick well-adapted spongy mat of living sphagnum, a moss that knit together like raw wool. This bog was famous for both its size and proximity to the road. Hikers venturing onto the moss would quickly find the ground lower and themselves in water up to their ankles. Below was a secret lake.

  She knew this because she was scheduled to take a canoeing trip on this very bog. Canoes carrying passengers were heavy enough to sink the moss below their keel so the party could glide along over the bog that sprang back in place after their passing.

  Erin looked out at the tuffs where the thick brush was actually cranberry bushes whose blossoms had given way to tight green berries. There were orchids and carnivorous pitcher plants, as well.

  “Erin?” She glanced to Dalton. “Percy says we need to show our ID.”

  “Oh.” She turned to look out the back window. “Mine is still in my pack.”

  She wondered if these were really DEC rangers or CIA agents in disguise. She couldn’t ask Dalton, of course, so she just watched as a ranger stepped out from the truck and held up a hand for them to halt.

  Percy laughed. “Think the truck in the road is all the stop sign I need.”

  The ranger wore the correct uniform and utility belt that included a gun. Many of the rangers here were tasked with law enforcement, so that was not all that odd. But the sight made her uncomfortable.

  “Where’s the other driver?” asked Dalton.

  The ranger approached Percy’s side of the truck.

  Dalton opened his door and had one leg out when the ranger reached Percy.

  “Hello again,” Percy said.

  The ranger dipped to look into the vehicle and then drew his pistol and fired.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The pistol shot exploded so close to Erin’s head that afterward she could hear only a high-pitched buzz. She gasped like a trout suddenly out of water. Percy slumped over the wheel. Her entire body went stiff with terror and sweat popped out all over her body.

  Dalton wrenched her from the truck and down to the ground. His service weapon was out and he aimed forward toward the two vehicles, firing three quick shots.

  Erin clamped her hands over her ears and squatted beside him, her back against the truck bed. The other ranger fell sideways in front of the truck.

  Dalton rose, arms extended to quickly check through the open door to the place where the first man had been, ready to fire through the truck and past Percy. An instant later he dropped down beside her.

  “He took the keys,” he said.

  Her ears still buzzed and his voice seemed distorted. Something moved in the truck and Dalton aimed.

  “Wait!” she shouted.

  Lulu leaped down from the cab, her coat spattered with Percy’s blood. The dog disappeared beneath the truck.

  “Where did he go?” she asked, referring to the shooter.

  The road was now silent except for Lulu’s labored, wheezing breath. Erin dropped to her belly to check the dog and saw the shooter’s feet as he rounded the back of the truck.

  She tugged at Dalton’s sleeve and pointed. He nodded, motioning her under the vehicle. She rolled beneath the truck bed as Dalton dropped to his stomach and fired two shots.

  There was a scream and the shooter collapsed to one knee as blood dripped from his foot. Dalton shot him again. Two shots. One in the knee. The other in his hand. The shooter dropped his gun and howled, scrambling back. Then he vanished from sight.

  “No shot,” said Dalton to himself as his target disappeared.

  Erin remembered belatedly tha
t she also had a pistol. She drew it now, holding the muzzle up and hoping she didn’t shoot herself in the face. A pounding came from above her head.

  Gunfire sent shafts of sunlight beaming through the new holes in the pickup’s truck bed.

  “We have to get to those vehicles,” he said.

  “My pack?”

  “Leave it.”

  Dalton tugged her up and pushed her before him. She ran toward the SUV, dancing sideways to avoid the still body sprawled in the road. When she reached the SUV, she peered inside.

  “No keys,” she said.

  Dalton had paused to check the corpse of the downed attacker, rummaging in his pants pockets. An engine revved.

  Somehow the shooter had reached the cab with two bullets in his legs and one in his hand. Percy’s body lay crumpled in the road beside his truck, and the wounded shooter was throwing the truck into gear.

  Dalton made it to her as the truck raced forward. They dove from the road as the driver plowed into the SUV where she had stood. The SUV spun off the road toward them as the truck raced by. She fell to her stomach and slid as the SUV bounced down the embankment in front of them and rolled to its side.

  “Where the hell is our backup?” he growled.

  The pickup sped past and then turned around.

  “He’s coming back,” said Erin.

  Dalton lifted his weapon and fired continuously, every few seconds, with well-timed intervals, as the ranger smashed into the second truck pushing it along the road before him. The driver used Percy’s vehicle to sweep the last useful getaway truck into the opposite ditch, where it tipped, engine down and back wheels clear off the ground.

  “They did a good job grading this road,” said Erin. The high ground was dry and out of the bog, even after that heavy rain.

  “We have zero cover,” he said.

  “But he lost his weapon,” she reminded.

  “That truck is two tons of weapon.”

  Lulu sat on Erin’s right foot and glanced up at her. Something niggled in her mind. Two tons of weapon. The idea sprang up like a mushroom after a rain.

  “Do you think he has another gun?” she asked, watching him back up.

  “If he did, he’d be shooting at us.” Dalton removed his empty clip and pushed the spare into place in the pistol’s handle.

  “You want to keep shooting at him?”

  “Unless you have a better idea. We can use the culvert for cover.”

  “He’ll just run us down.”

  He looked around. “We need to get to the SUV. Use it for cover.”

  “He can just hit that again.”

  He gave her an exasperated look. “What do you want to do?”

  Their attacker spun Percy’s truck back to the road and put it in Reverse.

  “He’s getting a running start,” said Dalton, more to himself than to her.

  “We could go out on the bog,” she said, pointing.

  He glanced at the open area broken only by tufts of grass and clumps of brush. “No cover.”

  “We won’t need it. It’s a bog.”

  He shook his head, not comprehending. “Here he comes.”

  “That moss is floating on a lake like a carpet or a giant lily pad. He can’t drive on it because it’s not solid ground.”

  Dalton turned his head, focusing on the bog now. “Can we run on it?”

  “Yes, but we’ll get wet. Sink a foot or so. It’s spongy, like running on foam rubber and—”

  He cut her off. “Okay. Okay. Go!”

  She lifted Lulu off her foot and into her arms, then darted down the hill past the SUV. The tail section of the vehicle had already sunk into the moss, which accommodated the weight by moving out of the way.

  Running out on the sweet-smelling, soggy sphagnum moss was like running on a field of wet loofah sponges, a rare experience that she would have enjoyed in other circumstances. The plant that most people only saw in wreaths and at the base of floral arrangements was a living sponge and just as easy to run upon.

  Dalton swore as he stumbled and tipped forward. The bog absorbed his fall like a living crash pad, soaking his front in six inches of clear water. He scrambled to his feet, now standing in twelve inches of water as she raced ahead of him. She’d been on this bog before, looking for native orchids to show her expedition, and knew the best way was high steps and a little bounce. Her experience allowed her to get well out in front of him. Lulu whined in her arms and scrambled to reach her shoulder. Once there the little dog perched, looking back at the truck that was no doubt in pursuit.

  “Erin?” Dalton paused, glancing behind him. They had made it some forty feet out on the bog.

  Not far enough, she feared, seeing the pickup gaining speed in what she thought might be preparation for a jump from the road, some five feet above them, and onto the bog.

  If he landed near them, the truck would sink down with the moss and take them with it. And the moss would tear... She had a dreadful premonition of what could happen to them. Stories told of early settlers rose in her memory. Entire mule teams vanishing with wagons and all. Swallowed up in an instant as the sphagnum moss rent like fabric, dropping men, animals and wagons through the spongy layer that instantly sprang back into place above them. Leaving them beneath the two feet of moss and as trapped as anyone who had ever been swept beneath ice by the water’s current.

  Her heart raced as she looked around for something to anchor them should the moss tear, keep them on the right side of the sphagnum mat, even if they temporarily sank.

  “Grab the cranberry bushes and don’t let go!” she yelled to Dalton.

  She dove, using her one arm to grip Lulu and the other to latch onto the wrist-sized trunk of a hearty bush covered in tight green berries.

  Dalton did not ask questions or try to take control. He just followed suit, landing beside her. Their combined weight sank them in eighteen inches of cold clear water. She lifted her head to breathe and looked back.

  The truck was airborne. Lulu struggled, her body underwater. Erin held on.

  The impact of the truck rolled under them like a wave. The vehicle landed upright, several yards away. Instead of speeding along the open field, it stopped dead as the tires turned uselessly and the motor revved.

  The driver’s hand went straight up as the moss sank instantly to the windows under the two tons of weight. She heard the wail and saw the brilliant red blood streaming down his shooting arm from his wounded hand. The moss yielded without a sound, the gash tipping the truck engine down before the vehicle vanished. The scream cut short as the moss sprang back into position, grass, plants and bushes appearing just as they had been, leaving no sign of the horror that must be playing out beneath them.

  Erin rolled to her back and Lulu dog-paddled away, her stumpy front legs thrashing until she reached a clump of grass that barely moved under her slight weight. There Lulu sat on a pitcher plant, panting.

  Dalton lifted a hand to his forehead.

  “Remind me to never cross you,” he said. He sat up in the water that reached his hips, staring back at the empty bog. “It’s like it never happened.”

  He was soaking wet, with bits of pale yellow-green moss sticking to his clothing.

  “Why aren’t there any helicopters or CIA agents charging from the trees?” Erin asked.

  He glanced around. “Great question.”

  “You know what I think?”

  “What?” He had one hand pressed to his forehead as he continued to look back at the tranquil expanse, disbelieving.

  “They’re dangling us like a worm on a hook,” she said. “Doesn’t matter what happens to the worm as long as you catch the fish.”

  “Only both our fish are gone.”

  She nodded. “We should get off this bog.”

  “I’ll say.”

  �
��It’s a protected habitat. I don’t want to damage it any more than necessary.”

  “You’re worried about the swamp?”

  “Bog. It’s a completely different ecosystem from a wetland. I’m scheduled to lead expeditions on this very site later in the week.”

  “Well, if I’d known that, I wouldn’t have let you come up here.” He tucked his gun into a pocket that was still underwater and shook his head in bewilderment. “And you think my job is dangerous?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “They wanted one alive,” said Erin to Dalton as they stood on the road staring out at the bog. They were soaking wet and the breeze chilled him, but not as much as that sphagnum moss.

  “You can’t even see the tear. Nothing.” Dalton shook his head. “It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.” He glanced her way. “You canoe on that?”

  “Walk, too. It’s safe.”

  “Yeah, right. You’ll never convince me of that.”

  She hiked Lulu up higher on her chest and scratched behind the dog’s ear. “Now what?”

  “The way I see it,” Dalton said, “we can wait for the Feds to come and perform their catch and release. Try to capture another member of this terrorist outfit, preferably without getting killed, or we can get out of here and try to make it to someplace safe.”

  “Nowhere is safe as long as they think we have the vials.”

  “You’re right, and I have a feeling Siming’s Army will not take our word for it that it’s gone.”

  “And we have no proof that the CIA took it from us.”

  “Or that we even met with them.” He turned to her. “What do you think?”

  Her brows lifted, and she stopped stroking the trembling dog. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, tell her that they’d get out of this. But he was no longer sure. Bringing her back out here now seemed the stupidest play imaginable. The CIA didn’t have their back. His fanny was swinging out here in the breeze, and he’d dragged her with him.