Rafe Sinclair's Revenge

by Gayle Wilson

  Consequently, Elizabeth was the first to step out into the open. By then, of course, the weapon she carried was back in position. Edmonds cleared the last of the brush almost immediately, stepping out onto the roadbed beside her.

  He should have told them to check out the car before they unlocked it, Rafe realized belatedly. He began to hurry in case neither of them remembered who they were dealing with and took that necessary precaution.

  The crack of a high-powered rifle echoed through the dawn stillness. Adrenaline had already been pumping through his bloodstream, both from exertion of the walk and the need for constant wariness. Its effects, along with the unmistakable sound of the rifle, ricocheted him back to the last time he’d heard that distinctive crack and whine.

  Instead of viewing a mixture of dappled light and deep shadow in a Virginia woods, the scene before him was the brilliant noonday heat of a Parisian street. Like an echo of the current shot, he heard the sound of the rifle he himself had fired and watched the bullet explode at high velocity into the skull of the man he’d targeted.

  The flashback seemed to last only a second or two. He couldn’t be sure of that, because by the time it was over and the present had reformed before his eyes, neither of the people who had been standing at the edge of the roadway was there.

  Mouth dry, he eased up from the low crouch he’d automatically dropped into at the sound of the shot. He couldn’t even be sure if there had been one shot or a barrage.

  The woods around him were as quiet as a tomb. Even the ubiquitous buzz of the insects had been silenced.

  He fought the urge to call out to Elizabeth. And the far stronger one to go plowing through the corridor of scrub vegetation that lay between his current position and the last place he’d seen her.

  She’s fine, he told himself. She and Edmonds were doing exactly what he was. Lying low, trying to get some idea of the shooter’s location, and trying not to call attention to themselves in the meantime.

  Of course, the gunman obviously knew where she and Edmonds were. That shot had been taken as soon as they’d appeared on the roadway.

  Whoever was out here must have found the car during the night and banked on them doing exactly what they had done this morning. He had been waiting for them to show up. And they hadn’t disappointed him.

  Elizabeth and Edmonds were pinned down, which meant it was up to him to do something to get them out of this, Rafe decided. He tried to mentally recreate the sound of the shot, in order to judge distance or direction.

  He couldn’t. The flashback, triggered by its sound, had distorted his perceptions. He couldn’t be sure what was real and what was memory. Certainly not sure enough to use his impressions to fix the shooter’s location.

  And his need to get to Elizabeth was becoming more urgent. He needed to know she was all right. If he didn’t, the building anxiety about her safety was likely to have additional side effects he couldn’t afford right now.

  He began moving toward the last place he’d seen her, making no attempt to hide the noise he was making. If Jorgensen wanted a target, he’d give him one. It was only after that thought formed that he realized the concession he’d just made.

  Jorgensen was dead. He had watched him die.

  And he had done it again in that flashback. Although the people who had been with the terrorist had rushed to his aid, there was no way that head shot had left him alive. No way.

  Almost in answer to that mental assertion, a bullet slammed into the trunk of the tree above him, sending splinters of bark down on his head. It was immediately answered by the deep cough of Edmonds’s Beretta. He hoped like hell Elizabeth was the one firing it.

  He glanced up at the damaged wood above his head. Whatever ammo the bastard was using, he didn’t intend for anybody to walk away.

  As the last echo of the two shots faded, their sound lost within the canopy of trees, Rafe changed direction, angling back the way he’d come. The bullet hadn’t come from beyond the parked car, as he had expected. The shooter seemed to have established his stance a couple of hundred feet back down the lane. Toward the house.

  Which would have given him a clear line of fire on anyone coming down the road. As well as a line of sight on anyone doing what they had done—using the woods as protection until they’d had to step out of them and onto the roadway beside the car.

  The whole time he was thinking about the setup of the ambush, Rafe was moving toward the area from which the second rifle shot had been fired. This time he concentrated on making as little noise as he could.

  The guy was obviously across the road. To get to him physically, Rafe would have to expose himself by crossing its narrow, open expanse.

  Unless he could get the man with the rifle to expose himself first. Thinking about the possibility of doing that, he stopped at the barrier of undergrowth fronting the drive.

  He studied the opposite side, eyes probing the shadows. Looking for any anomaly in the natural patterns that might indicate his enemy’s location. Again there was nothing.

  As he paused to make that appraisal, he heard a telltale rustle in the vegetation to his right. He took one last scan of the other side of the road, watching for some reaction to the noise he was hearing.

  Then he turned his gaze, as well as the muzzle of the Glock, in the direction of the sound. Given the location of the shot that had struck the tree above his head, whoever was approaching him through the undergrowth on this side of the road couldn’t be the man with the rifle. It didn’t necessarily follow, however, that it was a friend.

  There had to be some explanation as to how they’d been discovered, because he knew no one had followed them here from Mississippi. He would stake his life on that. It was all he knew right now with any degree of certainty.

  That and the fact that someone had set up an ambush at the place where John Edmonds had abandoned his car before he’d stolen up to the house. The question now was whether that ambush had been set up with or without Edmonds’ contrivance.

  The third rifle shot was unexpected, causing him to duck instinctively. He heard the bullet strike something off to his right, very near where he had heard the rustle in the bushes a moment ago.

  There was no outcry, but there also seemed to be no more movement. Or maybe whoever had been there was now taking pains to ensure his approach was silent.

  Rafe’s eyes again considered the opposite side of the road. Nothing moving there, either.

  They could play this game all day, each of them hunkered down and protected by the density of the foliage around them. And unless their attacker had planted some kind of trap in or around the car—

  “It’s Edmonds.” The whisper came from his right, very nearby. “Elizabeth’s hit.”

  The words were like a fist in Rafe’s gut. For a split second he wondered if they might be some kind of trick. Even as he considered the possibility, he knew he had no choice but to react as if he believed them.

  Especially when he remembered the damage that second shot had done to the tree over his head. The shooter had chosen his weapon with the clear intent to maim, if he didn’t kill. The realization of the kind of injury one of those slugs could do to the slender body he’d held in his arms last night made him physically ill.

  If she’d been hit, they had to get Elizabeth out of here. That was their first priority. To get her someplace where she could be treated. And every second was critical.

  He turned his head, concentrating on keeping his voice as low as Edmonds’s had been. There wasn’t time to try to coordinate a plan.

  “Get her into the car. I’ll cover you. Then get the hell out of here. Get her to a hospital.”

  “What about—”

  “Do it,” Rafe ordered, his voice too loud in the stillness. He took a breath, determined to stay in control. “Just get her in the car and then get her out of here.”

  There was no response, but before he had to issue the order again, he heard Edmonds moving back the way he’d come. As Rafe wai
ted, allowing plenty of time for him to reach the edge of the road where he’d left Elizabeth, a dozen unanswered questions bombarded him, the most important, how badly she’d been hurt.

  It was too late to ask. Too late for everything but what he intended. Without allowing himself to think of anything but the feel of Elizabeth’s mouth trembling under his as it had last night, he stood, presenting himself as an alternate target for the shooter.

  Chapter Ten

  As soon as he was standing, he pumped two quick shots into the location he believed was the most likely place for the shooter to be set up. They drew an answering fire, but it wasn’t directed at him. The bastard was still targeting Elizabeth and Edmonds.

  The return fire did give him a more precise location, although by now the ambusher should already be moving. On the off chance that he wasn’t, Rafe put two more rounds into the thickly shadowed area from which the rifle had spoken.

  As he squeezed off the last, he began to force his way through the undergrowth, headed toward the road. There was only one way to make sure the next round would be aimed at him. He had to present a threat the man with the rifle couldn’t ignore.

  When he cleared the barrier of vegetation on this side of the road, he was relieved to hear movement on his right. It came from the direction in which Edmonds had disappeared. Apparently the Phoenix operative was doing what he’d been told.

  As soon as Rafe’s feet hit the smooth surface of the road, he began to run, charging across the lane toward the area from which the last series of shots had come. There was an immediate reaction. A bullet nipped the sleeve of his shirt a fraction of a second before he heard its report.

  He didn’t slow, but his next step, taken at a dead run, was a leap to the left. He continued a randomly zigzagging pattern as he crossed the open expanse.

  Down the road a car door slammed. Despite his concentration on reaching his target, despite the roar of adrenaline running through his veins so strongly now that he felt invincible, he knew what the sound meant. Edmonds had gotten Elizabeth into the car.

  He heard the second door close, followed by the sound of the engine starting. He felt a sense of triumph that nothing, not even the bullet that hit the ground in front of him, spraying dirt and gravel against his shins, could destroy.

  He leaped into the brush on the far side of the road, blindly firing off another round into the vicinity he’d been targeting. There was no answer, but he had expected the shooter would move as he advanced on his position. He had counted on him doing that to give Edmonds a chance to get Elizabeth into the car. The question was: In what direction would that movement be?

  From the road behind him, the car horn bleeted. Intent on scanning the area around him, his eyes searching patches of light and shade, Rafe didn’t stop to respond.

  He assumed that was Edmonds’s way of letting him know he’d succeeded in carrying out the task he’d been given. That was all that mattered. Getting Elizabeth to a hospital. Whatever happened next—

  The horn sounded again, a long impatient blast that pulled him out of his single-minded focus on the shooter. What the hell was Edmonds doing? He should be out of here by now.

  Distracted, he slowed, shooting a glance over his shoulder. From where he was, he couldn’t see the car. The horn sounded again, this time as another series of staccato beeps.

  Ignoring them, Rafe started forward, moving more cautiously as he approached the area where he believed their attacker had been hiding. There was no one there now, but as he searched, expecting another shot at any moment, he discovered a shell casing lying beside an uprooted tree. The metal shone against the black loam of the forest floor.

  Still alert, he knelt behind the fallen trunk, near where he’d found the casing. As he’d expected, there was a clear line of sight across it and through the woods to the road.

  This was where the bastard had been set up. He scrutinized the surrounding area, but there was nothing here now. No one moving through the undergrowth. No sound but the insistent demand of Edmonds’ horn.

  Was it possible that despite Elizabeth’s injury the idiot was waiting for him? If so, continuing to search for their ambusher would only delay the treatment she needed.

  And, Rafe admitted, unless the shooter chose to reveal his location by taking another shot, which he didn’t seem inclined to do, he had little chance of finding him. There were too many places here where an attacker could conceal himself, like that behind the fallen tree he’d chosen for his original ambushcade.

  The next time the horn sounded, Rafe responded. Giving up the search, he began to make his way back to the road, moving cautiously, making use of whatever cover he could find.

  Either his charge into the woods had frightened their attacker away or, more likely, he had accomplished what he’d intended. As with the explosion back in Magnolia Grove, Rafe believed that Elizabeth had been his target from the first. This time he had had more success.

  He broke through the fringe of vegetation, stepping out onto the shoulder of the road. Apparently that was what Edmonds had been waiting for. He gunned the engine, sending the car skidding down the dirt road. It pulled up beside him, the passenger side door opening before it had stopped.

  “Get in,” Edmonds yelled.

  “I told you to get out of here,” Rafe said, but he was scrambling into the front seat as he said it.

  Before he could close the door, Edmonds had the car moving again, this time in reverse. Almost reluctantly, anxiety twisting his guts, Rafe turned to look in the back seat.

  Straight into Elizabeth’s eyes. Although they were widely dilated, the dark pupils eating up most of the color, they seemed focused and alert. And clearly furious.

  “What the hell was that about?” she demanded.

  Ignoring the question as rhetorical, he examined her face instead of answering. It was far too pale, the faint freckles across her nose again starkly prominent.

  His eyes fell to her right arm, which she was holding crossed over her breasts. She was pressing Edmonds’s Oxford cloth dress shirt, haphazardly folded, over the upper part of the left. He could see a spreading bloodstain on the cloth beneath her fingers.

  “How bad?” he asked.

  “Not bad enough that you needed to play kamikaze. What the hell did you think you were doing?”

  The tirade sounded remarkably normal. She sounded normal, and for the first time since Edmonds had told him she’d been hit, the coil of fear inside his stomach began to unwind.

  She was losing blood. In and of itself that could be life-threatening, but she seemed to have all her faculties about her. Given the time that had passed since the first shot, that probably meant nothing major had been hit. No arterial bleeding. Anything else they could deal with.

  The car swerved wildly. The hand of Elizabeth’s injured arm, the one that was not applying pressure to her wound, came up as she tried to keep herself from being thrown sideways by that sudden change of direction.

  When her fingers grabbed at the back of the seat, she breathed an expletive he’d never before heard her use. It was low, but it was definitely heartfelt. Smiling a little, despite the gravity of what had happened, he turned his head to look out through the windshield.

  Edmonds had backed the car into a small turnoff. Before Elizabeth had a chance to right herself, he pressed the accelerator again, sending the sedan squealing back onto the road. This time heading away from Griff Cabot’s summerhouse.

  “FAR ENOUGH,” Rafe said. He didn’t have any idea how far they had come or how much time had passed since they’d left the dirt road and pulled onto the state highway. Long enough for him to be certain no one was following. “Take the next turn.”

  “I’m not sure—” Edmonds began.

  “I want to look at that wound. Then we can decide where we go from there.”

  “We go to meet Griff,” Elizabeth said. “Like he told us.”

  “That needs to be tended to.”

  “It’s a graze,” she sa
id.

  “A graze that’s bleeding like a stuck pig.”

  “Thanks for the image,” she said, “but it’s still just a graze.”

  “That’s accurate,” Edmonds offered. “The bullet tore a chunk of flesh off her upper arm. As long as she keeps pressure on it—”

  “I want to see for myself,” Rafe interrupted, working to keep his fear-driven anger in check.

  He still couldn’t get the picture of the hole this same type of bullet had gouged in that tree out of his head. He couldn’t seem to separate that damage from the memory of the unbroken smoothness of Elizabeth’s skin.

  “There’s a turnoff ahead,” he directed. “Take it.”

  “Rafe,” Elizabeth protested, but thankfully the car had already begun to slow.

  Rafe took one last look out the back window. There was no traffic. No tail. Wherever their attacker had disappeared to, it wasn’t to come after them.

  When he turned back to look through the windshield, he saw that the road they’d pulled off on, although paved, was almost as narrow as the drive leading up to Griff’s. About a hundred yards ahead on the right was a small frame church.

  “Behind the church,” he said.

  If they had to, they could break into it. The building would be unoccupied this time of the week, but it would undoubtedly have some kind of rudimentary kitchen. Maybe even a nursery with clean crib sheets ready for the next service.

  Edmonds obeyed his instructions without argument. Before the car had come to a complete stop, Rafe had his door open. As he walked around behind the sedan, he checked out their surroundings. There was nothing here to alarm him, but he remembered that he had felt the same way just before Elizabeth stepped out of the woods and onto the drive at Griff’s.

  There was a cemetery beside the church, its gravestones old and weathered gray-green. The area was shaded by a couple of pin oaks. In close proximity to one of them, within a few feet of the last of the graves, someone had built a children’s play area using two-by-fours and old tires.