by Fiona Quinn
“That scenario you painted is risky, brother,” Finley said, looking out over the icy conditions.
“I really don’t think we could risk the hike.” Anna said. “We have gas. If we can get down and get camouflaged, I think we should just stay with—"
The sound of metal scraping metal stopped her mid-sentence.
Chapter Nineteen
Anna
Finley creased his brow and stared at Anna as she called out “No. no, no, no, no.”
She slowed their car and little by little brought them to a stop.
“Report,” Honey was calling over the phone.
Finley swiveled from the waist as he turned to see static blue lights. They were no longer approaching. He lifted the binoculars from the seat. “It looks like one of the service vehicles spun out and the others slid into the lead car.”
Anna made a give-me waggle with her fingers, and he handed the binoculars over to her. “Honey, you have this on satellite?” she asked with stiff lips.
“Affirmative,” Honey said.
“Are they reporting the accident over the radio?”
“Nutsbe is monitoring the area communications, and they are still not in radio contact. Commander Kane has reached out to their dispatch and dispatch is attempting to make contact.
“The officers are ignoring their communications?”
“So far,” Honey said.
“That means they’re working off the books.” Anna dropped the binoculars into Finley’s lap. “Count heads and report movements,” she said as she pushed the heater dials to high and blasted the air into the cab. She dragged the gear into drive and started them moving. “Honey, I’m going to continue on. It doesn’t look like they’re in mortal danger. I’m not going back to assist. I need you to talk me into the hide.”
“Roger. Wilco,” Honey said. Honey had used military radio protocol. He must have heard her tone and known that she’d shifted her gears too. “I need you to stay calm. Drive steady. You have the advantage.”
“Three heads,” Finley said. “Two in uniform. One looks like a civilian. It isn’t Harvey.” He reached up and worked the dials on the binoculars. He was using the night vision. “One is gesturing movements. There must be a fourth. Yup, someone’s getting the car out of the pile up.”
Anna pushed the pedal down feeling for how the tires liked the new snow. Was there grip? Was it slick? She rubbed the steering wheel. “You and me. It’s a dance,” she whispered.
“Here they come,” Honey said.
“Four head,” Finley said.
“Steady,” Honey said.
“How far out is your team?” Anna asked.
“It’s going to be a while. Once you get to the cabin—"
“Look,” Anna interrupted. “If I can get enough space between us, I’m willing to slide us down behind the wall. But we aren’t hiking anywhere. There is no way in this world that I’m leaving my transportation or moving Finley through the woods. You’d better get here fast.”
“We’ll do our best, ma’am.”
Finley was draped over the seat watching the car chasing them through the binoculars. He’d call out the distances on the readout as they seemed relevant. The one advantage they had was they were in the SUV. Heavier. Broader tires. And the four men who gave chase were in a trooper car.
When they moved down the hills, they picked up range. As they climbed up the hills, wheels slip-sliding, digging for traction, they lost range. Anna felt like her time in the Hindu Kush Mountains had served her well. And though Finley’s driving skills and sang-froid had saved their lives on their first trek together, Anna much preferred to be in the driver’s seat and in control.
“Here we go, Zelda. Are you ready? Slow your speed without applying the brake.”
“Roger.”
“How is the ambient light? Can you see without the headlights?”
Anna flicked off her lights for a moment. “Barely,” she said.
“Alright, that’s alright. Just no brakes. I’m talking you in. The pull off is to your right. Coming up ten, nine, eight—”
“There’s a break in the guard railing and then a stone wall? That’s where you want me to go?”
“Affirmative.”
“There’s a sheer drop-off on the other side of this barrier.”
“Yes, ma’am. There’s a small scenic stop behind the wall.”
Anna reached up and pulled her seat belt tighter. She glanced at Finley, and he did the same.
“Can’t be worse than last time we did this,” he said, and she laughed.
“Good, you’re just rolling. Pull your wheel slightly right in three, two, one.” Anna thought she understood how Honey Honig had come by his call sign. His voice was warm and sweet and completely trustworthy. What she didn’t trust was the ice and snow and the stopping power of the brakes.
They tilted as they angled toward the opening.
The tires squealed their high-pitched efforts as they slipped and spun, crossing the berm of snow the plow had pushed up earlier in the day and had since frozen into a slick barrier.
Finley reached out with a locked elbow, a steadying hand on the glove compartment.
Anna had sucked in a deep breath and trapped it in her lungs. She needed all of her energy focused on getting them behind the wall and stopped. None of this silly breathing and blinking business. She massaged the brake – slowly, slowly pushing down as the back wheels slid out to the side rotating dangerously near the edge. She stomped the emergency brake and that held. She threw them into park, slammed the lights off and jumped out of the car. “Stay put,” she called as she reached in to grab the phone and binoculars from Finley’s lap.
Anna pulled open the back door and pulled the Mylar blanket from the pack. “Wrap up. Stay warm,” she ordered as she pulled the pack out. She hoped the heat she’d blasted would keep him safely warm now that the engine was off.
“Wait!” Finley yelled. “Where the heck are you going?”
Anna slammed the door before she wasted time on explanations.
“Honey, you still with me?”
“Affirmative.”
“I’m going to try to cover up the tire tracks and get a rock behind the wheels. The SUV is in a precarious position, and I don’t want Finley’s movements in the cab to get it rolling down the damned mountain. If we get cut off, I’ll try you back as soon as those tasks are accomplished.”
“Roger,” Honey said as Anna pushed the phone into her hood and tightened down the draw strings. The cold of the snow on her face, the whip of wind sliding down the mountain, put her right back into the fight or flight survival mode of the last few days. Lifting the binoculars, she saw the trooper cars headlights at a distance. Shovel in hand, she smoothed the tire tracks in the road. Covered the dips where they crossed the berm and slid the back curve across her footsteps. In the dark, the police should blow on by. Feeling next to the wall, Anna found two melon sized rocks that she wedged under the back tires to hold the SUV in place. She was grateful that the vehicle was white on the snowy day. She crouched low behind the wall.
“Honey?” she gasped out, thoroughly winded.
“Hold tight, they’re coming up on your position. You’re looking good.”
Anna could hear the engine’s roar and the crunch of tires above her. Her back to the wall, she worked to manage her breathing.
“They’re headed down the road,” Honey said. “Nope. They’ve stopped. They’re doing a three-point turn.”
“That’s because there are no tire tracks on the road beyond the wall,” Anna said as she lifted herself to a crouch and jogged up the dip, onto the road, and into the woods.
“Is Finley there with you?” Honey asked.
“I left him in the car. And I hope to hell he stays there.”
“You have a plan,” Honey was inviting her to share her thoughts, not asking a question.
“I have a plan. I’m going to hold them off. And your team is going to get here fast. I have t
hree pistols, two extra magazines, about eighty rounds. So that’s not a lot.” She slid behind a wide oak and positioned Mulvaney’s weapon on her posted knee. She waited. Waited. Waited.
Her finger left the guard, and she pressed the padding of her naked finger against the trigger.
Crack!
The night was splintered as the forty-caliber hollow point bullet rocketed from the barrel. It hit the car’s front right tire. The driver fought for control.
Anna was up and running closer to the patrol car, sliding behind another thick hardwood. Standing tight against the trunk as she watched.
The car inched forward, again.
Anna needed to keep them as far from Finley as she could. She sunk down to the ground, raised on her elbows, slowed her breath, slowed her heart beat, she focused down the barrel, lining up the three glow-in-the-dark dots, waiting for the center dot to steady and nest into place. She inhaled, held her breath, and pressed smoothly on the trigger.
Crack!
The second tire blew, and the patrol car slid backward despite the efforts of their driver. Anna ran tree to tree as the car rolled down the hill and stopped where the road evened out. She positioned behind a tree that forked at a convenient height. She nestled her gun in the crotch of the branches and waited.
The cop car doors popped open and Anna shot to skim a bullet across their roof.
Pew!
The doors slammed back shut.
Three bullets.
“Zelda, report.” Honey’s voice rose smooth and non-intrusive from where she’d wedged the phone against her ear. His voice was modulated so as not to startle her away from her concentration but to remind her that she wasn’t completely alone out here.
“Shots fired,” she said. No duh. They could hear that. “I’ve taken out their two front tires, they are stranded in position.”
“Copy.”
A bright light swung in her direction – cop equipment made to hunt down the bad guys. What happened when the good guys were the bad guys? Well, they were probably just guys, following orders, and didn’t realize they were taking on the role of bad guy. Anna needed to remember that. And she needed to keep all of them safe. Everyone needed to go home tonight.
The light stopped when it found her face, blinding her. Anna threw herself onto the ground and rolled down the hill to a bush, brought up her gun just as someone from the car fired on her old position. She desperately wanted to kill that light, but she thought the man holding it wasn’t smart enough to have it out to the side – and it definitely wasn’t Anna’s intention to kill anyone.
She heard a door on the opposite side pop open. They were trying to distract her with the light while others exited. Anna couldn’t allow that, they’d be moving toward Finley, and Finley had no protection. No gun. No equilibrium. He was running on fumes.
Anna had to make sure that the bullets weren’t headed in his direction.
She scrambled closer to the car until she was almost behind them. There was a man crouching behind the opened door, binoculars in hand. Anna aimed carefully above his head and shot out the window glass. The guy dove to the ground and rolled under the car.
Another bullet headed her way, splintering a tree trunk.
She moved farther down the road until she found a tree with accommodating limbs and climbed up into the branches. And so began the game. Shoot. Shuffle. Crouch. Wait.
She prayed that Finley was smart enough to hold tight and stay put – she knew where he was, she could move the pieces, so he wasn’t in a direct line of fire.
Shoot. Shuffle.
She kept the men pinned down.
They realized she was a good shot. They also realized she wasn’t trying to hurt them. Or they’d be dead. That meant they’d started taking chances.
And that meant Anna was having to take some trick shots that had a higher potential for lethality.
She didn’t want to hurt anyone.
But they meant to kill her.
Badge or no badge, Anna wasn’t willing to let them succeed.
So far, Anna’s suppressive fire had kept them pinned down.
Kept them in their car.
She slammed her last magazine into place.
Fifteen bullets. This was it. After this, she’d end up going hand-to-hand. She saw no way around it.
Chapter Twenty
Finley
Finley laid on the floor of the SUV, hoping that any bullets headed his way would get caught by the engine block. He’d hear a shot, then a return shot. Anna was taking on the men in the car. He realized she was guarding him, putting her life on the line for him.
He’d been in battles before where he’d been pinned down, and he’d had to wait it out. It wasn’t in his nature. His body wanted to run into the fray. But he had learned patience.
He worked hard at that patience. Knowing Anna was the target made it almost impossible for him to do the right thing and stay put.
He’d been in battles with female soldiers before, and it made no difference at all to him. Man, woman, non-binary, an American uniform, and an expert skill set were all he’d cared about. He’d put his life on the line for them. And they’d done the same for him.
But here he was lying low. And Anna was taking rounds.
Finley was doing a lot of self-talk. He knew that anything other than lying still would piss Anna off. And she’d be right. She’d calculate his position into her movements. If he changed his position… well, death by friendly fire didn’t matter. Dead was still dead.
Finley fished out his cell phone and dialed up Honey. Finley figured that if someone from the FBI was after him, well what could they possibly do in this situation. “Ping away!” he told his phone as the Iniquus operator patched him through to Panther Force war room.
“You in the SUV?” was Honey’s greeting.
“Holed up,” he said.
“Stay put we’re almost to you.”
“Zelda’s okay?”
“She’s trying to keep them stuck in their car. But she’s down to her last few bullets. Things might get a little hairy in the next few minutes. We don’t know how much ammo they had on them. Chances are they’re running low, too.”
“Minutes. Is that how far you are away?”
“We’re just about to the base of the valley. We’ll stage the ambulance until the scene is clear. You will stay put.”
“What’s next?”
“We’re going to load you and Zelda up and take you to Marshall Highschool, we have a medevac helicopter positioned and ready to fly you out. They can only take the one passenger.”
“Which is fine as long as Zelda is bullet free when you get to us.”
“Roger that.”
“Where are they flying me? Don’t tell me Charlottesville.”
“Charlottesville,” Honey said.
“Seriously, I’m not safe there. I need to be in Washington DC at Suburban Hospital.”
Finley’s assertion was met with silence.
“Washington DC,” Finley insisted. “Charlottesville will leave me too exposed. Obviously, there’s something big happening. I can’t give you all the details. But the players won’t want Zelda and me to stay alive for the hot wash where we share our information. Someone on the inside will get burned if we do. Someone with a lot of pull.”
“Copy,” Honey said.
Finley listened as Honey mumbled to someone else in the room. He heard another shot cracked the silence up the street. If he was counting correctly, Anna was down to a couple dozen bullets.
“The ambulance was left at the bottom of the hill. Our team is using the truck to move into position. Zelda hold your fire. Hold your fire.”
There was absolute silence.
Finley imagined Iniquus men in white snowsuits fanning out with their rifles pressed under their cheekbones. Someone would raise a voice amplifier to his mouth. “You are surrounded.”
Yup. Here it was. The decision point.
What would these guys do?
Chapter Twenty-One
Anna
“Hold your fire,” came over the phone.
With the last pull on her trigger, Anna’s slide had locked open. She was out of bullets. “Good timing,” she whispered as she moved her position. “The area’s hot. Four armed men. Three in uniform.”
“Copy,” Honey said. He already had that information, but Anna wanted it to be clear to the Iniquus operatives moving into place. Firing on an officer of the law was a capital offense.
A car door swung slowly out. The men had been testing her ammo supply.
Every once in a while, a door would open. She would shoot, the man under the car would shoot back.
It was stupid dance.
What they didn’t know was that Anna was stalling for backup. They thought when she had unloaded her ammo supply that they’d rush her. And now all her magazines were empty.
Another door opened.
A third.
She didn’t fire. No bullets.
They knew she was empty and here they were, coming after her.
How much ammo did they have?
How far out was Iniquus? What was their plan? Honey had yelled cease fire. The operatives were close then, right?
Anna thought about climbing a tree, that would work in a hand to hand fight, but not a gun fight, not with these leafless branches.
She looked for an outcropping of rocks, something that might shield her from flying bullets, but then again, she’d seen enough people die from ricochets. Rock didn’t mean safe. She glanced past the patrol car now riddled with holes. If she could stay out of their search light and get over the guard rail, it could be she could hide on the side of the cliff.
Anna didn’t know where the men were. They swept the search light across the terrain, blinding her to the activities behind it. Ruining her night vision.
Hopefully, her winter camo was keeping her hidden amongst the brambles. She’d churned up the snow pretty well in the area. But these were hunting men. Tracking men. Her efforts wouldn’t hide her for long. Anna longed to yell, “Hurry!” into the phone. She rolled her lips in to hold back the word.
