“Go on then,” she said, as if he were going out for pizza.
Xander handed her Allison’s Ruger, kissed her on the forehead, and sprinted up the hill as gunfire shattered the quiet of the snowy night. He glanced back over his shoulder just long enough to see Sam giving the three men in the H1 all they could handle.
That’s my girl.
Xander hopped the wood-plank fence and steadied his focus on what lay ahead. Now that he knew exactly where Jerry’s cruiser had come to a stop, he figured it was closer to two miles from where he was to the airport. This was much in his favor. The longer they had to run, the more time he had to catch them. And even though the snow had begun to pillow on the ground below him, he was still able to run fast enough for the cold wind blowing in his face to force hot tears from his eyes. His visibility wasn’t more than fifty feet or so, which was okay because if he could catch them, the snow would dampen any noise his footfalls might make on his approach. He had no idea how much of a head start they had, but if it wasn’t long, he knew he would catch them. He could sprint two miles at nearly top speed. From the look of Jerry’s physique outside Allison’s house earlier, the sheriff would be lucky to be able to sprint twenty yards. The squawk of the handheld radio snapped him out of his zone.
“Xander. Xander can you read me?”
It was Tim. Xander grabbed the radio from his coat pocket, and without breaking stride he responded, “I’m here.”
“Xander, be careful out there. We found the woman they took hostage. She was lying on the side of the road. Over.”
Xander clicked in; his breathing was heavy. “Is she alive?”
The wind whistled past Xander’s ears, and his lungs began to burn as he inhaled the freezing-cold air.
Tim clicked back on the radio. “Xander, the motherfuckers put a bullet in her head.”
A surge of adrenaline spiked in Xander’s veins. Anger crept up his spine. He dropped the radio on the ground, clenched his fists, and found another gear as he sprinted across the snow-covered field toward the airport.
Toward the three people who had just become his prey.
14
Help is On the Way
Sam reached above the overturned Hummer once more and squeezed off the final three rounds in Allison’s Ruger. She tossed it to the ground, racked the slide on her Glock, chambering a round. She knew it was much colder outside than it felt to her. She knew the adrenaline coursing through her veins was giving her a false sense of warmth, like a shot of whiskey on an empty stomach. The men in the H1 behind her had yet to exit the vehicle. They had been shooting at her from open windows. The snow continued to fall around her, and as her eyes fixed on one large snowflake as it swayed toward the ground, she noticed movement behind the wrecked police cruiser in front of her.
The injured officer.
He was mostly hidden by the police car, but Sam could see his head poking out around the tire. Then she noticed him showing her his pistol, and it was followed by what she thought to be the most American gesture of all: the thumbs-up. The officer was okay, and he was indicating to her that he still had some ammo. She heard a door open behind her, and she quickly made a motion to the officer with her hand that went from right to left. She was hoping the officer would understand that she wanted him to get to the other side of the cruiser. That way they could at least cover two angles. She received a thumbs-up once again, and the officer began to shuffle the way that she had requested. Hopefully he understood.
She had been in far worse situations during her time with MI6. With far more skilled individuals after her. She was actually much more used to working this way, on her own. Before Xander came into her life, she had never worked with anyone else. She knew if it wasn’t for Xander, she would never have been good with a partner. But Xander was on another level. Sure, she had seen him make his share of mistakes. Women were certainly his downfall. He loved to save them. It was clear as well that he had missed his university years and was still trying to live them a bit. And if it wasn’t for Kyle egging him on, she felt like he would have matured a lot faster. As it stood, he still had some wild oats to sow, and good on him, he was still young enough and without any strings tying him down. Tactically, he could be a bit of a bull in a china shop. But his skill made up for any missteps. And she knew it was her balance of precision that made what they had work so well. They really were the perfect team. And right now she needed to do her part. There was no question in her mind that Xander would run the three of them down. She just needed to make sure no one unexpectedly climbed up his back.
Two more doors opened behind her, and after a moment all three of the Humvee’s doors slammed shut.
This was it.
Visibility had improved a bit, and as Xander crested what he figured to be the last hill before he saw them, he was surprised to see blue and red lights flashing in the distance. They must have had more of a head start on him than he had thought, but the boys in blue had beat them to the airport’s entrance. From the top of the small hill where he stood, Xander could see they were trapped. That meant they weren’t getting away, but it didn’t mean it was over. He wished he hadn’t dropped his radio earlier; it would have been nice to know what the chatter was. But in a way he thought it could be a good thing. Jerry probably had a radio himself, so if Xander did let anyone know that he was coming up behind them, Jerry would have heard him. The three of them were visible in the red and blue lights, and they were standing at the foot of Man O’ War boulevard, the only thing separating them from the three police cruisers that blocked the airport’s gate. Jerry had come out of the field to the left of the airport entrance, so the cruisers were about a hundred yards to their right and another fifty yards across the road. There wasn’t any shouting—he definitely would have heard it in the still night air—so he wasn’t sure if the police had even seen the three of them yet. Xander’s fear was that Jerry and company would abort efforts to get to a plane and instead keep making their way to the left, away from the police cars. He assumed that was what they were contemplating as they crouched in the small ditch adjacent to the road.
Xander decided to start moving to his left, and then he would come down the hill. That way he could completely block their only route for escape. As he ran along the top of the hill, he contemplated calling Tim on his phone. The reason he ultimately decided against it was because he was afraid Tim would alert the officers at the airport entrance, and it would cause a gunfight. Xander didn’t want to lose any more innocent lives if he could help it, and he definitely thought he could. Just before he started down the hill to flank them on their left, a set of headlights appeared from the south on Man O’ War, with a line of four additional, smaller lights directly above them. Xander recognized this immediately as the same light configuration that was on the H1 Humvee that had been trailing him earlier. Turns out they weren’t completely inept: they had the last Humvee ready in case something went wrong at the airport. Freeman, Jerry, and Allison had called for their alternate escape, and it was rolling toward them at a blazing speed right before Xander’s eyes.
He was the only thing left standing in the way of them and their freedom. With the snow coming down as it was, they would be able to get away easily in that massive all-terrain vehicle.
If they made it there.
A man’s voice followed the slamming of the three Humvee doors. “Okay, shows over. Come out with your hands up right now and I promise we won’t kill you.”
Sam moved from sitting to a crouched position, staying hidden behind the middle of the roof of the overturned Hummer.
She decided to speak back to them, since they already knew she was there. She was hoping the sound of a woman’s voice might at least somewhat disarm them.
“How about we try this?” Sam said with conviction. “The three of you put down your weapons, and I promise I won’t kill you.”
“Well, well,” the man said. Sam could tell his voice came from the driver’s side of the H1. “What do we hav
e here, boys? Listen, honey, put down your little peashooter, if you even have any ammo left, and let’s end this before you break a nail.”
They obviously couldn’t see Sam, but on reflex she couldn’t help but roll her eyes. She hated pet names like “honey” that men used for women. But she did love how men could be so predictable. She had always been able to use it against them.
She told them, “Look, however you believe this is going to go, I assure you it will end differently. Last chance, gentlemen, drop your guns now, or I will make you drop them.”
“And she’s British, now that’s sexy. I hope you do live through this so we can have a little fun,” the man continued. She of course understood what he meant, but the humor in it was lost on Sam. However, the other two men beside the Humvee chuckled with delight.
Sam picked up Allison’s empty Ruger off the ground and readied her own pistol. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Before the man could say anything else, Sam tossed Allison’s gun over her head as hard as she could at the H1. She heard a loud crack that sounded like metal hitting glass, and one of the men raised his automatic rifle to aim at the diversion she had created. She swung herself toward the back of the overturned Hummer, stood, and put a bullet in the man’s head. As he dropped to the ground, Sam, hardly needing to reset her aim shot through two open windows, and the man on the opposite side, toward the back left side of the H1, grunted and dropped out of sight. She moved her pistol toward the front window as she rounded the back of the overturned Hummer. But before she could squeeze the trigger, the man at the driver’s side door had already swung his gun in her direction and two gunshots rang out into the night.
Just as Xander bounded down the hill, he heard gunfire erupt back in the direction he’d come from. Back where he’d left Sam. He fought his instinct to stop when he noticed in the distance that the three he was hunting had turned and began running away from the airport entrance, toward their escape vehicle. Xander knew Sam would be getting the better of the men who rammed them off the road, so he focused his energy on making it to the H1 before the Jerry and company did. But the Humvee was charging hard, and he still had a long way to run. With about two hundred yards in front of him to cover, the Humvee was pulling even and the three fugitives were closing the gap on his right. It was becoming clear that he wouldn’t beat them there. But he knew the Humvee would have to turn back his way to escape. They wouldn’t risk driving past the police cars at the airport. With that in mind and as the Humvee charged past him, he ran straight for the road. He would have to stop the Humvee after they had been picked up. Not ideal, but when in life did ideal ever happen?
After hearing the two gunshots yet not having felt anything hit her, Sam ducked behind the back of the overturned Hummer and waited. She didn’t hear bullets crash through windows, and she didn’t hear them smack into the H1. In fact, they were pistol shots, and not from an assault rifle like the driver had been holding. She poked her head up just in time to watch the gunman fall from sight through both windows of the H1. It was then that it occurred to her that the young officer who had slithered away on her command had understood exactly what she’d wanted. And while Sam had distracted the gunman, the injured officer had an open shot and took him down. Sam stood and walked around the H1 from the back where she saw the man she had shot, lying right beside the man who had called her honey. Just up from them, at the tire of the T-boned cruiser, was a uniformed officer leaning against the car; red and blue lights revealed a smile on his face.
“We make a good team,” the officer said.
“Bloody right we do,” Sam agreed.
She stepped over the two bodies and crouched beside the officer. His tan pant leg was covered in blood, but it didn’t look as if it would be life threatening. Police cars were coming toward them in the distance.
“Looks like you’re going to make it. Mind if I go now and help get the people who did this to you?”
“No, ma’am. Please do. I’ll be fine. I’ll let them know what happened here.” The officer nodded in the direction of the oncoming police cars.
The lights of the cruiser flashed in Sam’s deep brown eyes. She flashed him an “everything will be okay” smile and gave his good leg a pat. That was just about the most empathy Sam Harrison had the ability to demonstrate. She then rose to her feet, stepped over the dead gunman, and climbed into the H1. She backed away from the overturned Hummer in front of her, steered around it, and mashed the gas pedal, propelling her up the hill that Xander had run across just minutes ago.
Sam decided immediately to forgo the road. She figured it would be much more slick than rolling over the grass. Besides, she felt the quickest way to get revenge was a straight line. And besides, she was in a Humvee, for goodness’ sake.
15
Not So Merry Christmas
The H1’s tires screeched and slid as the massive vehicle turned sideways and came to a stop. It sat in the street for a moment, idling, until a large figure climbed out of the driver’s side door and walked around to the back. Xander couldn’t tell for sure because of the way the Humvee was angled, but it looked like two more men climbed out on the opposite side. Past the Humvee he could now see that the police cars had left the airport and were pulling to a stop to form a small roadblock in the middle of the street. It caught Xander off guard because it happened so quickly, but as Allison, Jerry, and Freeman ran the last twenty yards to the H1, the men opened fire on the police cruisers. Fully automatic weapons sprayed bullets without regard in the direction of the cars and the uniformed officers posted at their doors, guns drawn. Instinct kicked in, and as Xander’s feet hit snow-covered pavement, he put two bullets in the back of the driver of the Humvee. Normally, he would have moved forward at that point, but he had zero cover. He figured the farther away he was, the better chance he had at hitting the last two gunmen and not getting shot himself. However, in the commotion, the other two gunmen didn’t even notice the man Xander shot go down. Thanks to streetlights hanging just above the Humvee, Xander noticed Allison kneel over the downed man, then look up in his direction.
Between shots, he could hear her shout something at the other men. It was then that they turned and came around the H1 and leveled their weapons on Xander. They almost glowed under the streetlight. Fortunately, as soon as Xander heard Allison shout toward them and they stopped shooting, he began to run for the small ditch beside the road. Just before they lit him up, he dove headfirst into the thin layer of snow. As the tat-tat-tat of the rifles rang out into the night, Xander wiped the snow from his face and shuffled his flattened body to where his head faced the shooters. The cold, wet snow quickly began to seep into his clothing, and goose pimples rose over his entire body. He felt as if it only heightened his senses. There was no way he could have counted their bullets to know when the men would have to change magazines, but he knew that they had begun firing at the same time a moment ago, and it sounded as if they had continued to fire at the same rate. He knew they were both close to a change, and as soon as he heard silence, he would be ready.
The firing continued and the bullets zipped over his head. The men weren’t great shots, that was easy to discern, but with an automatic rifle, you didn’t always have to be. One bullet zipped off the snowy pavement just to his left, and then silence fell over the deserted road. Without hesitation, Xander popped up, putting his weight on his right knee. His left leg was bent in front of him, and he propped his left elbow on that knee and used that hand to steady his aim as he squeezed off two shots. They both landed somewhere on the gunman on the left—most likely one bullet in the stomach and one in the chest. He then squeezed twice more, and those two bullets hit the gunman on the right somewhere around the chest and neck as he was desperately switching out his magazine. Both men collapsed to the ground, and Xander watched as the three fugitives frantically piled into the Humvee. He wasn’t sure who was in the driver’s seat, but he could tell by her hair that Allison had climbed into the back.
Xander rose to his feet and began walking left into the road, and forward toward the Humvee. Gunfire from the officers on the other side started back up, and for a moment it struck Xander as comical that he could possibly meet his end by one of their friendly stray bullets. After managing to live through the hundreds of bullets shot his way, from some of the most skillful of enemies he had faced as a soldier, to think a friendly from a bunch of well meaning local police officers could be the one to bring him down would be just about the worst way to go. The old war stories about him, which the navy men were apparently still sharing, would be immediately forgotten and replaced by this one. Not that he cared, but it would effectively end any “legend” he had managed to create. The untimely and morbid thought scrambled from Xander’s mind when the Humvee whirled around and began to move in his direction. Xander, in the middle of the road, began to fire his Glock with laser-like focus at the windshield of the oncoming beast of a machine. It continued to pick up speed as Xander continued to fire, and then Xander heard the dreaded click as his Glock had fired its final bullet.
There he stood, the snow and cold night wind swirling around him. He had no more bullets to fire, and a two-and-a-half-ton machine was coming at him like rolling thunder. He didn’t want to move, because he didn’t want them to get away. But he knew he couldn’t stop them, and just before he dove for the side of the road, just before the Humvee was close enough to hit him, a blur came out of the night and with a titan-sized crash there were no more vehicles on the road at all. A Humvee had come out of nowhere, out of the pasture Xander had just ran out of himself, and sideswiped its twin right off the road. The momentum of the vehicles carried them to the airport side of the road, and the Humvee driven by either Freeman or Jerry flipped over on its head; hot steam hissed out of the upside-down hood as the tires continued to spin like a turtle’s legs trying to turn itself right side up.
Xander King BoxSet Page 79
