Hot on the Trail

by Vicki Tharp

They climbed two sets of stairs. At the top of the second set, Quinn heard the click of a door and Moose slid through.

  Quinn followed right behind. “Where are we?”

  “Shhh,” was the answer he got.

  Quinn stretched his arms out, and his hands bumped into a wall on either side. A hallway. Was this where they were keeping the women? Moose’s footsteps faded away, and Quinn hurried to keep up. No windows, just an all-encompassing blackness, though the thunder rumbled outside and the rain drummed on the roof. He bumped into Moose.

  Why was Moose helping? What had changed his mind? Quinn was too afraid Moose would come to his senses if he was to ask him, so Quinn kept his trap shut. In the quiet, he heard the unmistakable sound of a key slipping into a lock.

  Moose opened the door, and Quinn rushed in after him. “Jenna? Jenna!”

  No answer. Panic, dark and dismal and defeating, threatened to overpower him.

  Lightning flashed. The room sat empty, the window open. Quinn’s foot splashed in a puddle of water in the middle of the room. He ran to the window and stuck his head out. Freezing rain pelted his face and plastered his shirt to his chest. Strings of lightning raced through the clouds, illuminating them from behind like Mother Nature’s disco ball.

  He looked to the right and down. Scoured the bushes below looking for mangled brush where a body might have landed, but in the strobing light, he could tell the bushes were undamaged. He searched to his left.

  Jenna.

  On the ledge.

  Her foot slipped, and she hung by her hands, her feet scrambling for purchase. His heart revved faster and faster until the blood deafened his ears and his heart rate redlined. He wanted to yell out, but the words clogged in his throat, making it impossible to breathe.

  “Help,” Jenna cried out. The word swirled on the wind, slapped him in the face, and knocked him back into action. He put his hand on the sill. Moose grabbed his arm and said, “This way.”

  * * * *

  “Hang on! Don’t let go!” Pepita screamed.

  The gutter dug into her fingers like razor wire. Jenna was going, going… Though she knew it was hopeless, she called out, “Somebody! Help! Help m—”

  One hand slipped free.

  Then the other.

  Then time warped, and she felt every little scrape and scratch and bump and bang as she started to slide down the side of the building. Pepita reached out.

  Too slow.

  Jenna’s hand fell past Pepita’s. For a nanosecond, the relief registered in Jenna’s brain as her shoulders quit screaming from the strain. Her face hit the brick, and pain erupted. It felt like someone had taken a belt sander to her cheek. Her pulse pounded, beating through her body, her brain.

  As her heart beat in her chest, the scars of the past broke free. There was no room in what remained of her life for the old hurts, from her parents, from Quinn. There was only room for love and forgiveness—for them, for herself.

  Then pain shot through her shoulders again—no, not shoulders. Shoulder. Singular, as her body jolted to a stop and she swung like a pendulum by one arm.

  “I got you,” God said from above, his hand gripping her wrist.

  Wait, that wasn’t God…

  “Quinn?”

  “I’ve got you. Hold still. Let me pull you up.”

  She’d imagined him. She was falling, her mind lost, dreaming of what she wanted to see in her last moments.

  But if she was falling, why did her shoulder hurt so much?

  Then another hand grabbed her other wrist, and she was hauled up and through the window. She landed in a heap across two warm bodies. One of them scrambled up; the other held her tight and kissed the side of her head. His chest heaved like monster-sized bellows, as his lungs sucked in oxygen. “H-holy fucking mother of God…” The words rasped out, thick and jagged. “Don’t ever do anything like that again.”

  Quinn. He’d found her. Found Pep—She scrambled to her feet. “Pepita!”

  “Right here,” came a deep voice. “She’s okay.”

  “Moose?”

  The man didn’t confirm or deny, just said, “We gotta go.”

  She grabbed for Pepita and hugged her. Quinn took Jenna’s hand, and she caught Pepita’s.

  “This way,” Moose said. It had to be Moose.

  She shook the water out of her face, her feet splashing in the puddles dripping from her body. She wanted her boots, but they didn’t have that kind of time.

  They heard a loud crack as a door slammed against the opposite wall. Boots, stomping down the hall. Then the lights flickered and came on. Jenna squinted against the brightness. Quinn was ahead of her, near the threshold. Moose stood alone in the hall. He held a hand up slightly from his side, a silent message to them to sit tight.

  She pulled Pepita against her. Quinn held his finger up to his lips for them to be quiet. She glanced behind her. Saw the red light on the camera. If anyone was watching, the hallway would soon be swarming with guards. Time to split. Now.

  The man down the hall called out to Moose, “You no supposed to be here.”

  Moose stood straighter, making himself look half again as big. You would have to be very strong, or very stupid, to challenge him.

  “I came for El Verdugo’s daughter. He wants me to take her to him.”

  “I in charge of women.” The guard stopped a few feet from Moose. Jenna, Quinn, and Pepita pressed themselves against the wall, out of sight.

  “And I’m in charge of the girl.” Moose turned his back on the guard and held a hand out toward Pepita.

  Pepita made a mewling sound and shook her head. Moose’s eyes cut to Jenna, and he said, “I won’t hurt you.”

  Quinn nudged Jenna. Jenna mouthed to Pepita, “It’s okay.”

  Pepita took one hesitant step, another, reaching out for Moose’s hand. Then the guard shifted into view, and Moose cocked his elbow and rammed it into the guard’s nose.

  Blood spewed, and Moose stripped the rifle from the man’s hands and smashed him across the temple with the butt of the gun. The guy crumpled to the ground. No sound. No cry of pain. Jenna didn’t know if he was alive or dead.

  “Madre de Dios,” Pepita said, the words quiet, breathy, as if Moose had knocked her in the chest.

  Moose pulled the pistol from the guy’s thigh holster and handed it to Quinn. Quinn dropped the magazine, checked the number of rounds, and slapped it back home. “Everyone out.”

  Moose bobbed his chin toward the door at the end of the hall. “Back stairs.”

  “Go.” Quinn laid a hand on Jenna’s back and urged her toward the stairs.

  “Wait,” Jenna said. “We can’t leave the others.”

  “We don’t have time,” Quinn said.

  “I’m not leaving without them.”

  For about half a second, Quinn looked like he was about to go caveman on her, and throw her over his shoulder to make a run for it. He glanced at Moose.

  Moose shrugged. “Your funeral.”

  Quinn held out his hand, and Moose slapped a key into his palm.

  Room by room, Quinn and Jenna unlocked the doors, and the women spilled out like caged animals being released from the zoo. Pepita pointed them toward the stairs. They’d freed three women when the sound of boots came rushing up the front stairs. Out of time. Jenna pushed Pepita up the hall in front of her, pressing the rest of the women into the stairway.

  “Go, go, go,” Jenna said, the words coming fast and urgent.

  Gunfire exploded behind them. The wood trim above her head splintered. Pepita froze, but Jenna propelled her through the door. Quinn wasn’t behind her anymore. She turned back as Moose and Quinn returned fire. The shooter ducked back down the stairwell.

  Moose grunted. “Go. I’ll hold them.”

  “You’re coming, too,” Quinn said.
/>   “Right behind—”

  Another shot exploded in the hall. Moose hit the wall and slumped to the ground, a bloom of red expanding high on his chest.

  Quinn sent a few shots toward the stairwell and went to grab for Moose.

  “Go,” Moose said again, as he propped himself up, the AR aimed at the stairwell.

  “Moose!” Quinn hollered.

  “Go.” Moose let loose a short spray of bullets. “Semper fi.”

  Semper fi? Moose? A Marine?

  “Fuck,” Quinn spat out, but he turned and rushed everyone down the stairs. Near the bottom, Quinn made them all stop, the intermittent pop of gunfire behind them. With care, he opened the door, stuck his head out, and waved the women forward. They followed like he was the Pied Piper of freedom.

  A man ran past, dressed in a tailored suit. Quinn let him go. The man was only interested in saving his own ass. Quinn headed for the same side door that the man ran through and held it open as the wind tried to slam it closed.

  “Everyone out,” Jenna said. “Stick together.”

  * * * *

  The women had just made it outside when a guard came running down the hallway, gun raised. Quinn released the door, and the wind slammed it against the jamb with a crack as loud as gunfire. Quinn took aim at the guy’s head. The guard froze. Smart man.

  “Drop the gun.” Quinn didn’t want to shoot anybody, but if the choice was this guy, or Jenna or Pepita or one of the women, or him—there was no decision to make. “Turn around and go back.”

  The guy didn’t move. Didn’t say anything. Did he understand English? The gun leveled at his head should be enough of a clue. “Vete”—telling him in Spanish to go away.

  The guard lowered his gun hand and crouched down in compliance, then another guard burst into the room and fired. Quinn got off two rounds, dropped the guy, and turned back to his primary threat. Instead of going, instead of saving his own life, the guard leveled his gun at Quinn.

  Quinn didn’t hesitate. One shot. Center mass. The gun dropped, and Quinn ran out the back door, feet slapping on the patio’s wet concrete. Quinn blocked the carnage from his mind. He would have the rest of his life to play that reel over and over and over again.

  If he lived through this.

  “Over here,” Jenna called out from behind a low brick wall.

  Quinn hurdled it, and slumped down beside her, the wet ground soaking into his clothes. Breathing hard, he dropped the gun’s magazine and counted out his remaining ammo. Two in the magazine, one in the chamber.

  Right now, the darkness, the storm, was their friend. If they could sink into the brush surrounding the property, they could hide there until help arrived. The women weren’t stable on their feet or thinking clearly. One stood up, and Jenna grabbed her hand and yanked her back to the ground.

  A door slammed, and Quinn eased up on his hands and knees and braved a glance over the top of the wall. El Verdugo ran out. The wind swirled, and the lightning drew closer again as the storm shifted and doubled back on itself.

  Through the whistling wind blasting through the treetops, the slap of the rain, the roar and rumble of the thunder—beneath all of that, Quinn heard the most amazing, the most musical sound—the high whine of a helo engine spooling up.

  Escape.

  For them—maybe.

  For El Verdugo—most certainly.

  Again.

  Oh hell no. “Wait here,” he ordered as he sprinted from bush to shrub to tree to anything else that provided a hint of cover. He didn’t wait for an answer or any sign of acknowledgment. He didn’t have that kind of time. He trusted that they’d obey.

  Good luck with that.

  Quinn came around the side of the mansion, spotted the helo pad and a little Robinson 44 in a clearing no more than fifty yards away. The pilot was strapping in and putting on his headset, the rotor picking up speed, slicing through the rain. The four-seater helicopter shuddered in the wind.

  If Quinn was smart, he’d let El Verdugo hop on that bird. With the wind shear that was coming up the cliff, and the storm shifting and turning back on itself, if the pilot wasn’t decent, they were as good as dead.

  But if the pilot knew his shit, or could hit a single number on a lucky spin…then they had a chance, and Quinn wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he was the one responsible for El Verdugo’s escape.

  El Verdugo scrambled into the helo next to the pilot, and Quinn sprinted after them, ducking under the spinning rotors, his gun leveled at the pilot’s head. He wasn’t going to shoot him, but Quinn hoped like hell to make the guy think he would.

  El Verdugo leaned out the Robinson’s door and fired. The shot missed. The helo’s skids lifted off the ground. Quinn returned fire. A gust of wind hit, the helo bucked, and the shot sparked and ricocheted off the door frame. El Verdugo ducked, and when he came back up, Quinn aimed for center mass and fired through the windshield. The helo yawed, the shot slammed into El Verdugo’s shoulder, and El Verdugo’s gun dropped out the open door.

  Quinn aimed at the pilot. El Verdugo shouted, probably something close to “Go, go, go!” Quinn fired a warning shot between the pilot and El Verdugo, and made a motion with his hand telling the pilot to set the helo down.

  The rotors slung the rain, partially blinding Quinn and drenching him to the bone. But a helo was a decent-sized target. He could see well enough.

  The pilot hovered, looking down the barrel of Quinn’s gun, while El Verdugo shouted. Quinn’s gun was empty, but as soon as his weapon had gone to slide lock, he’d released the slide on it with his thumb. If Quinn was lucky, the pilot had been too busy avoiding the bullet to notice he’d run out of ammo.

  The pilot must have determined that Quinn was the more immediate threat, because he set the helo down. As soon as the skids touched, El Verdugo jumped out and ran back toward the house. Quinn kept his focus on the pilot, motioning with his weapon for the pilot to climb down.

  The pilot bailed, leaving the engine roaring and the rotors spinning, and ran toward the woods. Quinn climbed into the pilot seat to shut the engine down, when he caught Jenna running toward him out of the corner of his eye.

  Lightning struck a nearby tree, the top exploding like a cache of cheap fireworks left too close to a campfire. Burning branches and limbs fell down all around him, pieces shattering as the rotors ripped through them, raining miniature firebombs all around them.

  Jenna hit the ground and scrambled to her feet, waving her arm in a come on motion behind her. What the hell was she doing? He’d told her to wait for him.

  From out of the darkness, he saw more forms, running and staggering and coming his way. Jenna instinctively ducked as she ran beneath the rotors and pulled open the copilot’s door.

  She was shouting, but all he heard was “coming” and “out” and “here.” Still, he didn’t have to hear every word to know they were in immediate danger. By the wild set of her eyes, whatever was coming was seven layers of bad.

  Jenna threw open the rear door, and she and Pepita pushed and shoved everyone into the rear of a helo only built to hold two passengers. Jenna scrambled into the copilot seat beside him.

  He pointed to the headset he’d slipped over his ears, and she did the same while she buckled up.

  “We gotta go,” she said. “Now.”

  “We’re over weight. At this altitude, with this storm, we’ll be lucky to get off the ground.”

  “We don’t have a choice.” She shot a look at the mansion, and in the darkness, Quinn saw a mass of movement. Lightning flashed, and the movement became men. Many men. Many armed men.

  Where had El Verdugo been hiding them all? They swarmed the back side of the building like an army of angry ants. A muzzle flashed. Then another. A bullet glanced off the helo’s nose.

  Quinn strapped in, grabbed the cyclic, reached down for the collective, an
d set his feet on the anti-torque pedals. More muzzle flashes in his peripheral vision as he glanced around at the controls, trying to familiarize himself with an unfamiliar helo before one of the shooters neutralized him.

  Right before he lifted off, the wind gusted, buffeting the helo. Lightning lit the sky, and thunder cracked and rolled.

  And suddenly he was taken back to another type of storm in another helo in another part of the world.

  Lightning.

  Drought-stricken trees.

  The whirling wind whipping the rising flames, until a firestorm screamed from treetop to treetop. If they aborted, all the men caught on the ground would burn alive.

  Then the screech of metal—like Godzilla chomping on a freight train.

  Mechanical failure.

  Low altitude.

  No rudder control. No time.

  His helo spun, spudded the earth.

  He’d had to live with those deaths on his head. Didn’t matter that his CO had said she couldn’t have done any better. Didn’t matter that he’d been cleared of any wrongdoing.

  If he was responsible for these women’s deaths, for Pepita’s, for Jenna’s, he couldn’t live with that on his head, too.

  And hell, with his damaged arm, he didn’t even know if he could fly. Better if they made a run for the trees.

  “Quinn, Quinn.” Jenna’s voice echoed through the headset and into his brain with an urgency that dumped more adrenaline into his veins like rocket fuel into a turbo-charged system. “Now. We gotta go now.”

  He looked at her. She must have seen it on his face—the doubt, the indecision, the pain, the guilt.

  Everything that he was.

  Everything that he feared.

  Another bullet whizzed by, piercing high on the windshield and drilling through the cockpit above his head, but he hardly noticed. Jenna pulled something out of the cup of her bra and hung the object around the ignition switch on the console between them.

  Kurt’s dog tags.

  “You and Kurt. You’ve got this,” Jenna said with complete sincerity, total belief, and an utter confidence he’d never heard before. Her faith in him, when nobody else had any, made him feel potent, prideful, powerful.