Kate sighted on the man again, but then saw Shane coming out of the darkness of the nearby trees at a dead run. Rollins’ man saw him coming and tried to bring his assault rifle to bear.
Shane grabbed the rifle barrel and pushed it away, then swung into an incredible natural and athletic roundhouse kick that caught the man full in the face and stretched him out unconscious. Without hesitation, Shane picked up the rifle, sorted through the unconscious man’s pockets and gear for extra magazines, and disappeared back into the woods.
“Antonio!” someone yelled. “Antonio!”
The four men dropped back, getting closer together. They shoved Steven and Hannah on to the ground. Kate’s control almost slipped when she saw her son and daughter huddled together crying. Steven had his arms around Hannah and her head pulled into his shoulder.
Kate breathed out. Steady, she told herself. First rule of survival is being able to save yourself. If you can’t save yourself, you can’t save anyone. But it was hard to remember that when it was her kids on the line. And taking hostages from armed gunmen was nothing she’d ever had to do as a wilderness guide.
“Antonio!” the man yelled again.
Kate dropped to the ground. At this distance, through the trees, she’d never get a shot without an arrow deflecting and potentially hitting Steven or Hannah. There were four of them to go and it might as well have been an army.
She made her way to Shane as he was pulling on the unconscious man’s field jacket. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“The only thing I know to do,” Shane answered.
“You think you can pass yourself off as one of them? That’s stupid!”
Shane glared at her. “You got any other bright ideas right now?” he challenged. “Because this is the best I can come up with on short notice.”
“Antonio! Bobby!”
“I’m not exactly crazy about this either,” Shane said, “and I’m going to be depending on you. When I walk over there, I’m going to be buying a few seconds’ distraction at the most. After that, everything’s going to go to hell.” He picked up the man’s rifle. “But I’m not going to leave those kids in that mess with those men. Even if they weren’t your kids, I couldn’t do that.”
Looking into his hazel cat’s eyes, Kate saw the old hurt in him and thought about all the family he’d lost. She’d lost her mother and that had been devastating. She couldn’t imagine losing everyone.
But that was what she was facing now.
“Bryce!” the man called. “Bryce Colbert, is that you? Because if that’s you, you need to know I’ve got your kids here!”
“It’s your call,” Shane whispered. “They’re your kids.”
“They’re not going to be fooled,” Kate whispered. “They’re going to see you’re not one of them.”
“Negativity is not a good thing right now,” Shane said. “This is the part where you tell me how clever I am and I get to go in and be the hero. Heroes fool everybody. Kind of like a natural Jedi mind trick.” He took a breath. “Hell, at least I’m not jumping into the swamp and taking on an alligator with a straight razor. If you ask me, that was pretty—”
Kate was leaning in before she knew she was going to act on the impulse. Or even knew what the impulse was. She slid her hand behind his head and through that long blond hair, pulled his head down to hers and kissed him.
Chapter 15
Electricity ran through Shane, making him feel as if he was going to explode right out of his skin. He felt Kate’s heat against him, tasted her lips, and felt her firm breasts pressing into his chest. Instinctively, he put his arms around her and maximized their proximity.
Over the years, Shane had known a lot of women. The ones that were hell in bed and the ones so cold they could put a bullet between a man’s eyes before post-coitus had time to truly kick in.
But he’d never known a woman like Kate Garrett. He felt a hunger for her like nothing he’d ever felt before. He was aware of the rain sluicing down on them, felt the vibrations of the thunder booming and saw the silvery sheen the lightning left on her skin as it lit up the dark skies.
He found something of himself in that instant that he’d never known existed. All the need in him to keep distant from other people suddenly eluded his grasp. He realized then the price he’d paid for that solitude, for the safety from losing anyone else he cared about.
Then she pulled back and looked at him. She tried a smile, but it didn’t fit and he knew she was worried. “For luck,” she whispered. Then she was gone, fading into the swamp brush around them like a ghost.
“Bryce Colbert!” the man yelled. “I’m going to kill one of your kids if you don’t come out of there!”
Shane gathered the rifle into his arms. It was an army-issue M-4 assault rifle. In the army, he’d carried one for three years, and he’d trained with a variation of them for the FBI for urban strike teams.
He eased through the forest, not daring to look over his shoulder because he wouldn’t see Kate. She’s there, he told himself. Just accept that she’s there.
“Bryce—”
Shane stepped out on to the trail so the other four men could see him. He hoped the darkness held and the lightning didn’t rip it away—at least for a moment or two longer.
All four men swiveled their rifles toward him.
That’s not a good sign, Shane thought. He held up a calming hand. Took a step. Then put his finger to his lips and pointed to the woods.
“How many, Bobby?” one of the men whispered.
Shane whispered back, “Five.”
“Is it Colbert?” the man asked.
Shane grunted and kept moving forward. He looked past the man, seeing Kate’s kids huddled on the ground. They looked small and vulnerable.
“Hey,” one of the men said, “that’s not Bobby.”
In that instant, an arrow zipped into the man’s neck, coming out on the other side. The man stumbled back and grabbed the arrow on both ends. His lips parted and he gave a gurgling yell.
A second arrow arrived almost immediately, striking a second man in the back, but it didn’t put him down. He yelled in pain and dove into the trees.
Shane brought his rifle up as he broke into a run straight at the man ahead of him. He yelled and fired into the center mass of the man, putting three rounds into him and pushing him over with the rifle barrel.
Then Shane was on top of the boy and girl, scooping them up and running for the trees, running back in the direction he thought Kate might be. He lost the rifle in the confusion and cursed his luck. He was unarmed again. He ran as far as he was able, slipping, sliding and falling down a hillside and ending up in a slough. He skirted the edge of it, not daring to try to run across because they would be exposed.
Then he couldn’t run any farther and he fell, taking the kids down with him in a loose spill of arms and legs. They cried out and Shane didn’t blame them because he was scared as hell too. He heard footsteps behind him and knew they’d been pursued.
The boy—Steven, Shane remembered—grabbed the little girl’s hand and tried to drag her away.
“No,” Shane gasped. “I’m an FBI agent. I’m here to help you.”
Steven kept trying to drag Hannah away. Fear twisted the boy’s features and he was crying.
Damn, Shane thought. Even her kids don’t believe you. He moved closer again and they shrank back. “I’m—” He struggled with what to tell them, listening to the footsteps grow closer. “I’m—I’m here with your mom.”
“Mom?” Hannah said, wiping her face.
“That’s right, Hannah,” Shane said. “She came to rescue you.”
“How did she get here?” Steven asked.
“She tracked you.”
Doubt knitted the boy’s brows. He was no one’s fool. “Across the swamp?”
“Your mom’s a tracker, Steven. One of the best I’ve seen. I don’t think a bloodhound could keep up with her when she gets started.” Shane was trying to give t
hem something to believe in. Kids, especially small kids, always believed their parents were capable of superhuman things. Shane had remembered thinking that about his own mom. Until he’d found her strangled that morning. “She’s here. I swear she’s here.”
“Where?” Steven asked.
Hannah pointed over Shane’s shoulder and screamed. He turned, throwing his arms wide and putting himself between the kids and the gunman. The guy had them cold. There was no room to maneuver.
“Hey man,” Shane said. “Don’t hurt the kids. You don’t have to hurt the kids.”
“Should have thought of that before you broke up the party,” the guy rasped. He centered the rifle on Shane’s face.
Something whizzed by Shane’s ear, like a really fat, really fast mosquito. Then an arrow sank into the gunman’s chest beneath the shouldered rifle. In disbelief, the gunman looked down, touched the arrow fletchings with the fingers of his left hand, then dropped to his knees and fell forward.
Shane turned around, watching as Kate stepped out of the shadows, another arrow already nocked. She looked like a goddess draped in darkness. Like Artemis, he finally remembered, the goddess of the hunt in one of the mythology books his granny had read to him when he was a kid.
Then she was on her knees, taking her kids into her arms. They were all crying, and even Shane found tears in his eyes.
But he was an outsider. He’d always been an outsider when it came to family life. Turning away, he went back to the gunman and picked up the dropped rifle.
Kate came up behind him. He felt her standing there even though she didn’t touch him. Slowly, he turned to face her.
“I don’t know who you are,” she told him in a voice tight with emotion. “I don’t know if you’re an FBI agent or a conman. But what you did for Steven and Hannah—” Words or her voice failed her.
“It’s okay, Kate,” he said. “I know.”
“It’s not okay,” she whispered. “The number of men I’ve met that would do something like that? I could count them on one hand and have fingers left over. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, but he wanted her to hold him again, and to give him the chance to hold her.
The dead man’s radio crackled. “Davey,” the radio called. “What’s going on over there?”
“We got hit!” an excited voice called back. “Somebody in the forest came in and took the kids! Took out the rest of the team! I think I’m the only one left!”
“Hold your position. We’ll get another team over there.”
Shane grimaced and looked at Kate. “Unfinished business,” he said. “Looks like we’re not out of the woods yet.”
“We’ll take Bryce’s boat,” Kate said. Her tears dried up as he watched. He was amazed again at how together she was. Her kids clung to her waist, obviously more at ease now but still frightened. “We need the key.”
“Maybe I can hotwire it,” Shane suggested.
Kate shook her head as she knelt and stripped a long-handled flashlight from the dead man’s backpack. “We can’t take that chance. We need the key.”
“Bryce has it,” Shane said. “And the other guys have got reinforcements on the way. Smart money says to go to the boat.”
“We could get trapped there,” Kate argued.
Shane sighed. “I know.”
“If we’re on the boat and we have no key, we can’t get away.”
Shane thought quickly. “Do you think you can find Bryce?”
“Yeah.”
“Then do it.” Shane hoisted the rifle. “I’ll see if I can delay the reinforcements.”
She took her children by the hands. Looking over her shoulder, Kate said, “Stay safe. And if you don’t get to the boat before me—” She hesitated and he knew it was hard for her to say.
“Leave without me,” Shane said. “Get the kids out of here as soon as you can.”
She gave him a tight nod, then hurried away.
Shane got his bearings, remembering the direction the other boat had gone. He set out at a distance-eating jog, wondering if any of them were going to get out of this alive. The forest seemed alive with enemies. And the storm was gathering intensity.
Kate found what she was looking for in a matter of minutes. The hollow between the copse of hardwood trees was mostly dry.
“I’m going to have to leave you here for a minute,” she said, slipping the bag she’d packed aboard the boat from her shoulder.
Both of them protested at once. Their pleas were so scared and plaintive it was hard to leave. If you don’t, they’re going to die out here.
“I have to go,” Kate repeated as she spread out the contents of the bag, bringing out blankets, bottles of water and trail bars. She didn’t know when Steven and Hannah might have last eaten. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”
“But you’ll lose us in the dark, Mommy,” Hannah wailed.
Kate took her daughter into her arms. “I won’t, baby girl. I promise.” Reluctantly, she pulled Hannah off her shoulder and looked at Steven for help. For all these years, he’d always looked down his nose at her, always faulted her for what she couldn’t give him that his father could.
“You killed that man back there,” Steven said.
Tears filled Kate’s eyes. She would have given anything for her children not to see that. How are they going to be all right after this?
“Yeah,” she whispered, meeting it head-on. “I did.”
Steven nodded. “He was going to kill us.”
“Yeah.”
“Because of something Dad did.”
Kate didn’t answer. She just couldn’t be that cruel.
“When you leave us,” Steven asked, “can you find us again?”
“I can,” Kate whispered, feeling the lump in her throat.
He smiled at her a little then. “I knew you could.” Turning to Hannah, he took his little sister into his arms and guided her back to the hollow.
It hurt Kate to see how grown-up he acted, but she took pride in it too. He looked back at her as she got to her feet.
“Mom?”
“Yeah,” she replied.
“Be safe,” he told her.
“I will,” she said. “And if anyone comes this way, anyone but Shane or me, hide. Hide really good. Understand?”
Back on the game trail, Kate ran, heading in the direction her ex-husband, Jolly and the woman had gone. She used the flashlight to cut their trail, spotting the deep impressions they’d left in the soft loam with ease.
Then she was hunting again.
Shane found the reinforcements with no problem. He climbed into one of the cypress trees and took up a sniper position. The second team carried flashlights against the storm’s darkness, looking like a glowing caterpillar snaking through the woods.
The satellite phone vibrated against his leg. Looking to his left, he thought he saw where Kate was. She intermittently used the flashlight she’d taken from the dead man. Less than a hundred yards ahead of her position, two other flashlights glowed in the darkness.
Evidently Jolly and the woman had found the site he was looking for. The GPS unit had guided them straight to it. Bryce had to be with them.
Shane felt scared for Kate, but knew she would probably see Jolly and the woman before she walked up on them. He slipped the phone from his pocket and answered.
“Shane,” Dennis said.
“Tell me you’ve got a team coming,” Shane said.
“I would if I could. They’ve upgraded Hurricane Genevieve again. She’s at Force Five again. Not only that, but it gets worse. I’ve pinpointed your position by GPS. Hurricane Genevieve has whipped up a wall of water. The weather guys say it’s going to hit the area where you are within minutes.” Dennis was quiet for a moment. “The meteorologists think this one is going to be even worse than the last one. The storm surge is bringing in another thirty feet of water. If you’ve got a boat where you are, buddy, climb in. Because you’re at ground zero to become a new, temporar
y sea floor.”
Kate! Shane looked north and saw her flashlight blaze again, then die out as she closed on her target. He shouldered the rifle, using open sights, and started firing, two rounds per target, aiming for the center mass. He had four rounds off, two men down before they knew they were getting fired at. Another two shots narrowly missed a third target, but by then they had his location tracked back to the muzzle flashes of the rifle.
As bullets tore through the branches around him, Shane leaped to the ground and started running for his life, leading the men southwest, away from Kate and the kids.
And the boat that he’d need if they were going to survive the latest storm surge.
Kate kept an arrow nocked to the bow as she crept up to the clearing where she’d seen the flashlights. When she’d heard the rifle shots back in the direction where she’d left Shane, she’d gone to ground automatically. She hoped that he was all right, and that the sudden silence didn’t mean that the new arrivals had killed him.
Don’t think like that. She forced herself to breathe. Kneeling, she stayed low as she surveyed the ground.
The flashlights had disappeared, either turned off or down and around a section of the swampland and trees.
After a moment, Kate got up and kept moving. Her mind raced. Evidently, the night of the kidnapping Jolly had had a GPS unit then too. With the police and FBI hot on his trail, he’d had no choice but to bury the money in case they were caught and memorize the coordinates.
Even in the storm, the GPS must have worked.
Only a few minutes later, with the rain hammering her like a determined prizefighter, Kate reached the target area. She glanced around the clearing and spotted the hole at once.
It looked like an open grave, mud piled up around it.
They hadn’t had to dig very deep. The wet ground had been easy to work through.
They never found the kidnapped woman’s body. The thought shot through Kate’s mind. She crept forward, and as she did, a shape materialized out of the darkness.
A body lay on the ground next to a mound of dirt. Two shovels thrust up from the dirt.
Storm Force Page 20
