by D. D. Ayres
So who was shot? Purdy was private security. That meant his partner, or partners, would be anything from ex-police-officers to former black ops, and every scary thing in between. One thing was certain. He would be a hunter, a predator, at the top of his particular food chain. The thrill of the hunt would urge him on even when the odds began stacking up. Adrenaline junkies, the lot. The man on the ground might be playing possum, pretending to be hurt to get the drop on whoever came in answer to the shots.
Like a hum beneath the wind, he could almost hear his enemy thinking, too low to register as sound but felt all the same in the deepest part of his chest. What would the fucker do next? What should his own next move be? He couldn’t stay out here in his undershirt forever. Already his muscles were beginning to ache from the cold.
I effing hate snow!
He waited. Listening. Hearing nothing but the wind and creaking trees and the faint tingling drift of snow through the air. Finally, far away, a dog barked.
After several excruciating seconds he thought he heard something else. Was that a siren? Or was the cold making his ears ring? He slid to the edge of the building and peered around the corner toward the front of the house. He kept staring, as if by looking long enough he would be able to pinpoint the source of the sound he’d heard. Finally, he realized what his brain was trying to show him. The person by Yard’s Jeep was gone.
Kye bit off a curse and slipped the safety free on his pistol. But it was only a precaution. No way could he make a clean shot at this distance in the dark.
He heard a soft swoosh of sound in the distance at his back. Yard. She would have realized by now that he had deserted her and was probably mad as hellfire about that. Had probably decided to come after him.
He spared a look over his shoulder, almost positive he saw her shadow take shape in the gloom of the building to his rear. He wanted to yell for her to stay back but he didn’t dare utter a sound.
And then he had bigger problems.
He caught the wisp of a human voice on the wind, undeniable this time, and turned his head in time to see a faint glow behind the window curtains in the kitchen. Was it a penlight? Too small and weak to be a flashlight. Or maybe it was a cell phone glow. Was Gunnar making a call? Didn’t he know that light made him a target?
The back door of the house opened and two figures emerged. His blood ran cold. The two carried a third slumped between them, head hanging limply down, with an arm draped over the shoulders of each of his captors. It was Gunnar. And Purdy. The third had to be his partner.
* * *
“Shit. Shitty shit shit shit.”
Yard whispered the curses as a stun grenade canister noisily rolled away from her in the dark. She’d safely pocketed two before the slip. It was so dark she couldn’t see her hand six inches from her face. She would never find what she dropped.
Something she hadn’t considered was that the familiarity of the storage room would vanish in a zero-visibility environment. It had taken her forever to find the right key, awkwardly trying to fit each one into a hole she had to locate by touch. Besides that, adrenaline was making her hands shake, which wasted valuable seconds as she fumbled around. Her clumsiness made her impatient.
This was a stupid idea. Why was she bothering to load up with flash bangs anyway? What were they going to do with more than—?
The soft click of a door opening sent her spinning around as she gritted her teeth to keep from calling out. Her heart went into overdrive as every sense strained for more information. Kye was here with her, she reminded her strung-out nerve center. He would have heard whatever she heard. He was armed. So was she, with flash bangs. They would be okay. Even so, she’d have felt much safer if Oleg was with them. She knew dogs. Weapons, not so much.
The question was, had someone come in, or gone out?
Moving silently to the doorway of the armament room, she pulled a flash bang from her pocket, fitting it in her hand so the spoon pressed against the web between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, and the ring of the pin draped over her fingers.
That’s when she heard the distinct click of a hydraulic door closer pulling a door shut. The sound echoed in the silence like a physical presence.
Swallowing the hysteria crawling up into her throat, she made herself consider where the sound might have come from. The devices were only used for outside doors. She’d helped install them herself. The sound had been nearby. That meant the cafeteria doors had been breached. Kye was headed that way when she came here.
Kye. He’d left her.
Heart thundering in her ears, Yardley stepped into the hallway, the forefinger of her left hand curled into the pin of the flash bang. If she went down, she’d take someone down with her. At least for the moment. Flash bangs temporarily stunned, blinded, and made victims deaf.
It look a few seconds for the light to gather in her eyes, trigger the cones that sent impulses to her optic nerve. And then she saw, in the light coming through the twin glass panes in the double doors, something hunched on the floor.
She bit off the cry that erupted from her and rushed forth, expecting to find Kye wounded. But the lump didn’t move as she called out softly. And when she went down on her knees before it and stretched out a trembling hand, she realized it was too small to be Kye. She touched the parka, a dark dull red in the semi-dark.
Empty.
She glanced at the door. Saw that it was unlocked. Kye had left her behind. After he promised he wouldn’t.
Relief made her weak as she slumped over the coat and gathered it tightly to her chest. Kye was okay. He wasn’t hurt. He was out there somewhere. Trying to protect her and save the day. Like some lunatic Lone Ranger.
Son of a B.
Anger replaced fear, burning through the terror of the last moments as she pushed her arms into the oversized coat for its warmth. It was still warm inside, and smelled faintly of Kye, that warm aloha sun, slightly salty sea smell that was his alone.
Don’t leave me behind.
I promise.
Kye McGarren had lied to her face.
She wanted his balls on a platter.
After they were safe once more.
She scrambled to her feet, put her unused flash bang in a pocket of his parka, zipped up, and pushed through the door. Two could play Rambo.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Yardley had never felt more exposed in her life than when she pushed through the cafeteria doors. Suddenly she was enveloped in illumination that was klieg-light-brilliant, or so it seemed after the tomb-like interior of the classroom building. Blinking and hiding her offended eyes behind an upheld hand, she fell back into the darkness and let the door close.
No way could she force herself to be exposed like a deer in headlights. Every cell in her body screamed Take cover.
Before the more cerebral parts of her brain caught up, her lizard brain’s self-protective tactics had moved her back across the cafeteria and into the classroom corridor. Lizard brain was taking her back the way she had come. It knew that way was safe. At least, it had been safe before. At the moment, nothing sounded better to either parts of her brain than “been there done that.”
It was a kick in the seat of her pride to realize that all she wanted to do was climb under her desk in her office and wait until daylight. She wasn’t going to do that but it made more sense than what she was about to do. Being afraid was getting to be a habit. First Stokes. Then finding David shot. Finally the realization that the man who’d shot David had brazenly entered her home to do more damage.
If not for Kye.
And that was why she was going out into this very unfriendly night. Because of the three of them, he was the innocent party. He was here because of her. She had to help him any way she could.
As for all the other feelings sloshing around inside her, they’d have to wait.
Nerves on high alert, she very carefully pushed open the same door she had unlocked for Kye to enter earlier. The deep shadows at the bac
k of the building seemed almost friendly. But she was taking no chances. Her vision had yet to clear the blank blackness that followed exposure to her sodium security lamp out front.
Using her left hand as a guide along the wall, she moved for the corner of the building as fast as was safely possible. Once there, she paused to catch her breath. She hadn’t been able to see a thing. But as the door behind her finally clicked shut, her vision came online again, minus the floaty black spots still blanking places. She looked down for three seconds then up again.
Kye was up ahead, at the far end of the bunkhouse. She knew it was him because, despite the fact he was only a vague upright outline, she doubted anyone else was out in these frigid temperatures without a coat. His back glowed faintly, as if his torso were radioactive, his white undershirt eating up the merest rays of light.
Relief flooded her, making her stumble. A moment later another sight arrested her movement altogether.
Beyond the outline of Kye, figures emerged from the back of her house.
Her blood ran cold. The two carried a third slumped between them, head hanging limply down, with an arm draped over the shoulders of the men on either side.
David! Dear God.
Yard slapped a hand over her mouth. She hadn’t actually cried out, had she? The wail was so vivid in her mind she couldn’t be certain. Until she realized no one had reacted.
Heart thundering, she forced herself to concentrate on the men moving across her yard. They were headed toward the rear. At fifty feet out, the ground suddenly swelled upward into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was one of the reasons her father had never bothered to fence it off, as he had the front property. No one was going to take an easy stroll up or down that slope. Tonight it was dark and treacherous with snow accumulations. The only reason the men carrying David would head that way was because they knew it was an escape route.
All at once she understood. They must have known about the utility road up along the lower ridge and parked a vehicle up there. The road ran for miles before coming out on the Lexington Turnpike that bisected the mountains. If they got away to the east, they would have a clear shot at escaping before law enforcement could pick up their tail. Someone needed to stop them.
With that thought in mind she moved forward—only to see Kye, weapon drawn, step out of the shadow into the light of the security lamp.
* * *
When he was fairly certain that Purdy and his partner were concentrating on reaching the back of the property under cover of darkness, Kye stepped out beyond the safety of the building. He was exposing himself, especially if there was a third partner watching. But if he didn’t act quickly they’d get away with Gunnar. He was certain the doctor had no chance of staying alive after they’d delivered him to whoever had promised a bounty. Acknowledged and disregarded. Neither fact slowed him down.
He put the safety on and tucked his weapon into his waistband. No way to distinguish among the three dark forms moving away from him. He could no longer even tell exactly where they were, or how they thought they’d scale the slope with a man who couldn’t stand on his own feet. That wasn’t his problem. He needed to get to their escape vehicle first and disable it.
He’d promised Yard that he would protect her. It was a promise he intended to keep. That also meant protecting the man she loved.
He took off at a ninety-degree angle to the building that shielded him. The bunkhouse blocked most of the security lamp’s light, giving him a protected path to the embankment. The snow slowed his sprint across the darkness but it also muffled the sounds of his movement. With a little luck Gunnar’s would-be kidnappers would never know he was on to them until he was in place. He came to a sudden halt as the earth rose up before him. About fifteen feet over his head a swath of light cut across the snowy slope at a narrow angle and was then lost in the tree line. For the precious seconds it took him to traverse that lit space he’d be vulnerable.
Hell of a thing.
Back in his vehicle were gloves and a balaclava, two things that would make the job ahead easier. He could feel his scalp tingling where snow had gathered in his hair and was beginning to melt from body heat. It could be worse, he thought in grim humor. It could be raining. Or Yard could be following him.
He glanced back but saw nothing in the shadows. At least she wasn’t following. He hoped.
He grabbed handfuls of a sturdy-looking snow-covered limb and hoisted himself up. After the first six feet, the angle became less steep but the underbrush provided a fright-house funfest of raking branches that swiped at his face and gnarled roots lying treacherously across this path to trip him up. Not possible to move quickly. His only comfort came from the distant swearing of the two men he was trying desperately to outmaneuver.
Had they momentarily forgotten about him? Or thought he’d turned tail and run away with Yard? Or were they too intent on delivering their prize to care any longer that they might be heard? It didn’t matter. He couldn’t get to them any faster because they were making noises. His path was fixed.
His fingers were getting stiff with cold and his lungs felt like they’d been scoured with steel wool. Any second he expected to be back-whipped by a branch that would knock him off balance and back down the slope.
Finally, the treacherous stretch of exposure due to the narrow band of light from below was before him. Crouched just below the swath of illuminated ground, he took a moment to breathe and scan the whereabouts of his targets. As soon as he saw them he looked away before they could catch the gleam of eyes in the dark.
The men were ahead of him, already climbing past the lightened ground. But he saw enough to know why. They were using tactical climbing ladders. And they were hauling Gunnar up on some sort of harness between them, one going fore and one aft.
Kye brushed the snow off his hair and blew into his cupped hands. So they weren’t just some hire-by-the-hour mercs. Someone had taken the time to learn the terrain and equip himself for this enterprise. Had this all happened between Purdy’s entrance into Yard’s home and the arrival of his buddy? No, probably before. Once he’d lost Gunnar early this morning, Purdy would have had to learn where to search for him. Someone had given him Harmonie Kennels.
The damn wonders of the Internet. Douchebag Number Two had probably Googled Harmonie Kennels, aerial view, and found both the property and road on the ridge. Maybe even had the trajectory and angle of the slope he was clinging to like a damn sheep, or Lily.
He spared a thought for his K-9 companion, knowing her absence was not a good sign. Lily had the agility of a mountain goat. Under other circumstances, she would have been up and over this hillside like a gazelle. Poor Lily. He hoped she was hidden well and tight. He’d make it up to her somehow.
He looked over again. Had they even expected they might be hauling a body? Maybe the bounty was for dead or alive.
That thought acted like a kick in the gut. But no, Gunnar had to be wanted alive. Or his captors would just have dragged him any kind of way up the hill. Someone wanted to interrogate Gunnar. Then his life would be worthless. That thought reinvigorated Kye.
He blew out a final breath, ignoring his fiery throat, and launched himself into the light. He moved quickly, not caring that his scrambling dislodged rocks that tumbled and fell with soft plops into the snow below. The men were busy moving Gunnar. No time for gunplay in that precarious situation.
In only seconds he was across the kill zone. He scrambled up into the tree line and into shadow once more. He could feel cuts and scrapes burning his hands and face, but the satisfaction of reaching safety without a bullet whizzing past his head was its own kind of wonderful. He didn’t stop to celebrate. Once in the trees the ground was more solid, the canopy of limbs shielding it from a lot of the snow. Strangely enough, there seemed to be more light here. Snow clouds overhead reflected light back from metropolitan areas many miles away. It was almost like having a half-moon to guide him.
He scrambled up and on. He was going
to beat those dickwads to their own getaway site.
He looked back only once, when he thought he again heard sirens. The mountains distorted and reflected sounds. He didn’t see a single rotating red light on the road below, but a pair of headlights was turning into the property.
Shit. Friend or foe? He really didn’t have time to figure that out.
He swung around and returned to climbing, determined to give those bastards the surprise of their life at the top of the road.
He almost let out a yelp of satisfaction when his fingers finally dug into a flat surface where gravel rolled beneath his fingers underneath the snow. He’d made it to the road. He hauled himself over the side and let the kick of adrenaline power him to his feet. The past two weeks of navigating the ski slopes gave him extra power in his arms and legs that had propelled him up the steep hillside. Even so, he was a bit wobbly for the first few steps. And then he veered left.
He didn’t see anything on the road ahead. No one was keeping watch. The dim, almost fairy light here was just enough to allow him to move confidently and quickly. Until he heard voices nearby. He paused. The men were just below him now. He could hear them arguing and cursing. Maybe that had something to do with the car that had pulled up in front of Yardley’s house.
Kye let his gaze range out to the parking lot. He saw a man step out of a dark automobile and then he heard that man’s voice over the loudspeaker say, “FBI. Surrender now or you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Kye smiled. Maybe the sheriff had called in reinforcements. Or the doc.
But he wasn’t about to signal to the agent below and risk giving away his position. The FBI wouldn’t know him from the mercs. And he most positively did not want to be shot at if the men abducting Gunnar were stupid enough to fire on a federal agent. If they were smart, they’d just keep doing what they were doing. The FBI didn’t know where they were. With luck, they might get away before the FBI located them up on this ridge.
His work wasn’t done.
