by CJ Lyons
Lucky ducked down behind the rocks that sheltered him, waited for a minute before slowly raising his head again.
One of the guards was covering Computer Guy as they broke through the snow, heading toward the laptop in slow motion. The second guard covered them both from the porch. The Preacher was nowhere to be seen.
All right, at least he would get two out of the five, even the odds a bit. Lucky waited for them to move into range. Then he changed his mind, decided to take the loner close to cover first. If he got him, he could move onto the others, hopefully before they made it to the trees.
Lucky pivoted, aimed at the man on the porch and fired twice in succession. The roar of the Glock sounded like thunder in the quiet wilderness.
The man on the porch stumbled back, then regrouped and began firing at the trees. Lucky turned his attention to Computer Guy and the other guard. The guard was fast, had made it into the trees, but Computer Guy was still stumbling in the snow, waving his gun around but not firing.
Lucky took him down with one shot. The other two were both firing now. He was in danger in getting caught in their cross fire if the second guard continued to move through the woods to out flank him.
Lucky only had a few seconds left, he could hear the second man thrashing through the trees, but couldn’t see him in the shadows. He concentrated his fire on the man on the porch, this time the man went down and stayed down.
Six shots left. Bullets slammed into the stone beside him. Time to get the hell out of Dodge.
The sound of gunfire screamed through the air just as Vinnie made it to the rear of the cabin. She watched the helicopter pilot leap from his cockpit, gun raised, searching for an enemy to shoot.
Not me, she thought, willing herself into a smaller target as she flattened herself behind a fallen log. You can’t see me, I’m just a shadow—it was the same technique she used when following animals in the woods. A reverse kind of hide and seek, pretend to be invisible and silent and you were.
Lucky’s distraction helped as well. She waited until the pilot’s back was turned to her, his attention focused on the front of the house, and lit the fuse on another of Lucky’s surprises. She heaved the incendiary device, its magnesium fuse burning brightly, as far as she could toward the guard.
Before it hit the ground, she was creeping in the opposite direction, making her way around to the other side of the helicopter. Lucky said she had to get to the fuel tank if she wanted to be certain that it would be permanently damaged.
She inched to the edge of the trees, still a good twenty feet from the helicopter, nothing between her and it except virgin snow. Where was the explosion from her tiny bomb? She dared a glance, saw the fuse had sputtered out in the snow, but the pilot was nowhere to be seen. The sound of gunfire stopped.
The forest grew ominously quiet once more. She tried to ignore the fact that the silence might signal Lucky’s death and prepared herself for her sprint across the open ground.
Just as she started, she heard voices from the front of the helicopter. She froze, hopelessly exposed, but further movement through the snow would make too much noise. All or nothing, she told herself and continued lunging through the thigh high snow to the fuel tank.
Vinnie almost made it before The Preacher stepped out from the front of the craft, aiming a very large gun at her.
CHAPTER 26
“We’re about five out,” the pilot alerted them.
Chase came awake instantly, feeling refreshed after his short nap. KC still held his hand, and he gave hers a squeeze. She turned and smiled at him, then released his hand to prepare herself.
He was worried for her safety, more so than he might have worried about a fellow Marine’s—not because KC was any less competent to handle a firefight, he knew first hand that wasn’t the case—but because she mattered more to him than any of the men he had ever led into battle.
Sad thing for a leader to admit. He would have gladly traded places with any of his squad who had died during that ambush in Afghanistan, but being willing to die for a fellow soldier was different than being willing to do anything in his power for the woman beside him.
Including treat her as a partner, an equal in all things, even sharing the danger. No one said he had to like it, though.
KC remained unhurried and unflustered as she arranged her gear and chambered a round in her MP-5 as easily as other women checked their lipstick.
Despite his deep-seated fear that something might happen to her, he also felt better with her at his side. A strange certainty that with KC there, nothing truly bad could ever happen to either of them, that their love would see them clear of anything and everything. Even death.
“Looks like a firefight down there,” the pilot’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “I count seven total.”
“One of those is ours,” Chase said. Three against six, he and KC had faced worse odds and come out on top. “Can you put us down? Or should we rope out?”
“Think I can put you in the clearing—” The helicopter swerved abruptly as bullets ricocheted off it.
Chase and KC both reached for the door handle simultaneously. KC grabbed it, nodded at him to take position to return fire. She yanked the door open and Chase crouched in it, scanning the terrain for potential targets.
“We’re going to have company in a minute,” the pilot said. “The Ranger’s heating up.”
The pilot skimmed the treetops, circling as Chase spotted a man running across the clearing.
“Lucky,” he told KC, pointing to the figure.
“Looks like we made it to the party just on time,” she said, nodding toward the downed man in the center of the clearing. She knelt on one knee beside Chase, her MP-5 raised as she scanned the area with her scope.
Another barrage of bullets came from the trees as they passed over the clearing. Lucky stopped and returned fire, even as the pilot jerked them skyward once more.
“Really wish you guys would take care of that SOB,” the pilot shouted into the radio.
Chase had other worries. Lucky was playing hero. He watched as his friend forsook the cover of the cabin and returned to the clearing, trying to draw the fire of their sniper so that they could zero in on the unfriendly’s position.
“Damn fool,” he muttered as he switched to full auto and opened up on the muzzle flashes barely perceptible through the tree branches. “Didn’t come all this way to take home a body bag.”
KC’s weapon echoed his sentiments.
“Drop it, Mrs. Ryan,” The Preacher told Vinnie.
Vinnie looked down at the Molotov cocktail in her hands. The fuse wasn’t lit yet, so it wasn’t going to do her any good. Unless she got close enough to The Preacher to blow them both up. He seemed to follow her thoughts, fired into the snow at her feet.
More gunfire and the sound of a helicopter echoed from the front of the cabin. Vinnie turned to follow the noise, hoping it was the good guys and not more of The Preacher’s friends.
A body slammed her into the ground. Vinnie swallowed a mouthful of snow, came up fighting but struggling to breathe at the same time. The can of white gas flew from her hand. She closed it into a fist and aimed for any soft flesh near her.
She was able to land one good blow to The Preacher’s throat followed by a knee to his belly as she fought against his greater weight and strength. The man wasn’t very big, but he was solid. It only took him a moment before he had her restrained, helpless.
“Let’s go,” he told her, leveling the gun at her face.
The newly arrived helicopter roared overhead, then banked sharply as more weapons fire sounded. Two people in the open hatch in the rear of the helicopter aimed their guns at someone on the ground. Please, Lord, not at Lucky.
The Preacher hauled her to her feet before she could finish her prayer. He wrenched her wrist behind her with a force that brought tears to her eyes. She was powerless to fight as he shoved her into his helicopter. He motioned to the pilot to take off, kept the door ope
n, his weapon drawn as they left the ground.
“Time for us to join the party.”
CHAPTER 27
Lucky was in an impossible position. Three rounds left; the guard in the trees still out of sight.
The Preacher’s helicopter revved its engines. He was desperate to get to Vinnie, but at this rate he couldn’t even make it to the porch and the second guard’s weapons.
Only one choice. Let the guard take potshots at Lucky while Chase took him out. Then Lucky could get to Vinnie. He turned in the snow, began to return across the clearing, gun raised, but not shooting, trying to tempt the gunman in the trees.
Plan almost worked too good. Snow spit from every direction as the guard opened fire. Lucky leapt across the few feet separating him from the boulders he had originally used for cover.
The guard’s position was such that, although Lucky crawled as far under the outcropping as possible, the bullets kept on coming, closer and closer, splinters of rock ricocheting into his body like a deadly hailstorm of stone.
The sound of a helicopter overhead made its way through the roar of gunfire. Bullets stopped flying for a moment. Lucky opened his eyes, squinted out from under his scant cover. The guard had moved to the edge of the trees, intent on finishing his prey.
Lucky raised his Glock. Now or never, he thought, hoping that the helicopter sweeping down over the clearing was Chase’s and not The Preacher’s. He fired at the guard, emptying his weapon. The man unleashed another hail of bullets in Lucky’s direction.
Lucky ducked back into his precarious shelter, bullets thudding into the dirt and snow around him. Then they stopped.
He opened his eyes, saw that his man was down. A second helicopter, The Preacher’s Bell Ranger, rose up over the cabin’s rooftop, like a vulture targeting its prey. Lucky squinted and saw Vinnie in the open door of the Ranger, The Preacher using her as a human shield.
Chase’s helicopter swerved into a steep angle and began to fire on the Ranger.
Lucky watched, helpless as The Preacher’s machine banked steeply. He ran out into the field, frantically waving at Chase’s helicopter, trying to signal to them that there was a civilian at risk.
Both machines circled overhead, engaged in a deadly tango and no one seemed to be paying any attention to Lucky. They flew out beyond the trees, over the gorge.
Vinnie clung to the edge of the open door, fighting against the heaving in her stomach as the helicopter bucked worse than a kayak caught in the hydraulics of a Class V rapid.
The Preacher circled his arm around her body, gripping her close as he fired at the other helicopter. He was shouting something but the pounding of the helicopter blades drowned out his words. The second helicopter turned, and a man in its doorway fired at them.
Bullets thudded against the side of their machine, mere inches from Vinnie. The Preacher returned fire, his gun resting so close to her cheek that the heat from it scalded her face. Empty cartridges pinged around the cabin, hitting her from every direction.
She tried to push The Preacher back into the relative safety of the cabin, but he forced her forward even more, so that she was leaning precariously out of the door.
Their pilot banked them into a sharp turn, and they sped out over the gorge. The bridge below them was writhing, careening in the rotor wash. The other helicopter followed, but no more bullets came her way.
Their pilot pulled them into a steep climb that skimmed the vapor rising from the waterfall and then leveled off back over the trees between her cabin and the gorge. The second pilot circled above them, trying to force them to the ground.
Laughter roared through The Preacher as he reloaded and braced his gun on her shoulder once more. For a brief moment the second helicopter’s pilot was exposed. The Preacher unleashed a barrage of bullets.
The people in the other helicopter returned fire, aiming at their tail rotor.
The other pilot slumped forward. The second helicopter’s engine began to shriek as the machine plummeted, speeding toward the ground.
With their helicopter caught in its path.
The Preacher shouted at their pilot who must have done something, because they dropped down past the edge of the trees and toward the clearing.
Vinnie calculated her risks as the other helicopter roared through the treetops. She glanced back at The Preacher. He was riveted by the spectacle of the other machine’s imminent crash.
Now or never. The ground was only fifteen to twenty feet away; she’d had worse falls bouldering without any injury. She bent her legs and pushed off from the helicopter just as their pilot thrust it upwards to avoid her cabin.
In the seconds before she hit the ground, Vinnie realized two things: that The Preacher still clung to her and that if the second helicopter wasn’t stopped by the trees, it was headed right at her.
CHAPTER 28
Lucky was torn between the horror of watching Chase’s helicopter smash into the ground and the sight of Vinnie falling from The Preacher’s helicopter, taking The Preacher with her.
He couldn’t do anything for Chase, so he focused on Vinnie. The Preacher released his grip on her midway through the fall. She bent her knees, rolling on the newly fallen snow, tucking her head down like an acrobat being shot from a circus cannon.
Lucky ran through the snow, but she was already on her feet by the time he arrived. The Preacher landed much less elegantly, lay sprawled face down in the snow a few feet away from Vinnie.
Vinnie reached down and snagged The Preacher’s Uzi, leveling it at the militia leader like a pro.
Before Lucky could say anything, a fierce shriek echoed through the woods. Chase’s helicopter’s tail rotor snagged on a large tree. The force made the helicopter seemingly defy the laws of gravity as it pitched over on its side.
A dark-colored form was thrown clear. The helicopter continued its abnormal rotation, its long blades slicing into the trees, sending a hailstorm of debris flying their way.
Lucky pushed Vinnie into the snow and shielded her with his body. There was one last scream of twisting metal followed by an earthshaking thud that vibrated through to his gut. He turned to look.
The helicopter lay on its side, its tail twisted like a corkscrew caught in a tree fork about twelve feet off the ground. The blades were bent and broken into grotesque remnants of scrap metal.
The form of a man lay mere inches away from where one of the blades had ended its journey. Chase! Lucky took a step in his direction, then stopped. Vinnie would be more help than he could be. He took the Uzi from her hand.
“That’s Chase,” he told her, restraining his impulse to grab her into his arms. “Go, please help him.”
She stood frozen for a split second, her eyes wide with terror, unblinking. Then, an instant later, she was sprinting through the snow toward Chase.
Lucky tore his eyes from the lifeless form of his friend when The Preacher stirred at his feet, rolled over onto his back with a groan.
“What about me?” he asked from his position in the snow. “Don’t I get an Angel of Mercy to tend to my needs, Agent Cavanaugh?”
Lucky’s hands tightened on the weapon. He fought the urge to shoot the unarmed man.
It was more difficult than he cared to admit. The image of Vinnie being forced into the line of fire by The Preacher filled his mind, made his pulse roar. “Make another move and you’ll be meeting the Angel of Death.”
A ghastly sight of wood and metal twisted together greeted Vinnie as she approached the downed helicopter. The pilot was obviously dead. Lucky’s friend, Chase, had missed being sliced in half by inches, and lay motionless on the ground, his right leg bent at an unnatural angle.
Vinnie slid to her knees beside his head, steadying it as she examined him. He wasn’t unconscious, his eyes stared at her blankly for a second, then he blinked and his gaze moved to the helicopter. His face was as pale as the snow he lay in, but other than his obviously fractured leg, she could find no serious injuries.
“
Forget me,” he kept muttering as she ran her hands over his body. “Get KC, she’s inside.”
His voice came in short gasps, not because of any trouble breathing but because of his intense pain. Vinnie looked up at the wrecked remains of the helicopter.
It lay on its side, tilted at a grotesque angle, its tail caught in a young birch tree that was slowly buckling under its weight. Then she caught a whiff of jet fuel. One spark and the entire thing would blow.
“Now!” Chase commanded her, pushing himself up onto his elbows as if he intended to rescue his fiancé himself if Vinnie didn’t obey. “Get KC!”
Vinnie didn’t argue. She left him in the snow and worked to find a way inside the helicopter. The landing skid was dangling, halfway impaled into the belly of the machine, but stable enough that she was able to use it to brace herself and scramble up to the cabin door.
Inside she saw a woman strapped into a seat, struggling to slice through her restraints with a knife.
Vinnie pounded on the door, and the woman looked up. She wore a flight helmet and other than a bloody nose, appeared to be in better shape than Chase.
Except that she was about to be incinerated if Vinnie couldn’t get the door open. Vinnie tugged at the handle, the door yielded a scant three inches, then refused to budge. It seemed hopelessly jammed.
She looked around for something to use as leverage. Ghostly blue tongues of flame danced over the rear section of the craft.
Not good. Vinnie resumed her efforts to dislodge the door. She was standing on a ticking time bomb. She turned toward her cabin, hoping to signal Lucky to get her fire extinguisher. Not that it was rated for jet fuel, but it was better than nothing.
Lucky had vanished. The Preacher as well.
