by Cindi Myers
Andrea put her hand on Jack’s arm. “We can look for the road in the morning,” she said. “Right now we’ve got to stop and rest.”
Brian lowered Ian to the ground, then sat beside him. “You could try to call for help again,” he said. Several times during their trek down the mountain, Jack had tried to telephone his boss but had been unable to get a strong enough signal for the call to go through.
He took the phone from his pocket and switched it on. After a few seconds, he shook his head. “No signal,” he said.
He looked exhausted, deep lines of weariness and pain etched on either side of his mouth and around his eyes. Andrea wanted to go to him and hold him, but she knew he would misinterpret the gesture as her needing comfort from him.
“Let’s move to the woods over there.” He gestured toward the thick growth of forest on the edge of the plateau. “I don’t like being out in the open like this.”
“You’re right.” Andrea hugged her arms across her chest. She had a feeling it would be a long time before she could stand in the open without feeling like a target.
Once in the woods, they settled down with their backs against tree trunks or stretched on the ground. Though the cold seeped into them, they were out of the wind. If they stayed close together under the blankets, they should be all right. Andrea settled beside Jack. “There’s probably ibuprofen in the first-aid kit in that pack.” Until this moment, she had forgotten about the medical supplies in the pack Jack had found at the fishing camp.
“I took it a couple of hours ago,” he said. “When we stopped at that creek to get water.”
“Did it help?”
“Some.”
“Liar.”
The corners of his mouth tugged up and that attempt at a smile made her heart feel lighter. “What’s going to happen when we get out of here?” she asked. She ought to try to sleep, and let him rest as well, but the question had been worrying at her for most of the last day. Exhaustion or the darkness or maybe simply desperation had given her the courage to ask it.
“I hope the evidence we’ve collected and whatever we find at the camp and the mine will help us to stop these people and bring them to justice,” he said.
Of course. He had thought of his job first. Of the case. “I meant, what is going to happen with us?” she asked.
He turned his head toward her. “I want to keep seeing you,” he said.
“If you solve the case, you won’t stay in Durango.”
“Maybe not. But they have these things called planes.”
“I don’t want a part-time relationship,” she said. She had already had one of those, considering how much of Preston’s focus had been on his work and not his home life. Even when he was with her and Ian, she could tell he was thinking about the job.
He let out a long breath. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “I want to be with you and Ian. Can’t you just have faith that we’ll find a way to work this out?”
She needed more from him than wishful thinking and maybes. She needed—what—a commitment? From a man she had known only a few days? “You’re right,” she said. “This isn’t the best time to be discussing this. We’ll have plenty of time later.” She patted his knee, then stood and joined Ian and Brian a few feet away. Ian still felt feverish and his lethargy during the hike down the mountain worried her. She needed to focus on her son instead of worrying about a man who could leave her life as quickly as he had entered it.
Andrea was sleeping when a low, throbbing noise entered her dreams. She pulled the blanket, which she was sharing with Ian, more tightly around her and willed herself back to dreamland. Maybe this was a dream, too, or the beginning of a nightmare.
Jack shook her. “Get up,” he said. “Someone’s coming.”
“Is that another helicopter?” Brian asked. He sat up and looked around.
“Come on,” Jack said. “Get up and bring everything with you. Whoever it is probably doesn’t know we’re here yet.”
“How long have we been here?” she asked.
“A couple of hours,” Jack said. “It will be dawn soon.”
Andrea would have thought she was too exhausted to take another step, but fear propelled her forward once more. She didn’t know if Ian even woke as she picked him up. She followed Jack and Brian farther into the woods.
“How did they find us?” Brian asked.
“They probably figured out we would follow the tramline,” Jack said. “It was the most direct route off the mountain. I knew we were taking a risk using it, but any other course in the dark seemed too dangerous.”
“Jack, I can’t keep running through the woods like this,” Andrea said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. And neither can Ian.”
“Neither can any of us.” He positioned himself behind a tree. “Do you still have the gun I gave you?” he asked.
“Yes.” The hard pistol dug into the small of her back, though in her exhaustion, the discomfort hadn’t been enough to keep her from sleeping.
“Do you think you can shoot it?”
“Yes, of course,” she said. Hadn’t they had this conversation once already?
“Would you kill a man to protect Ian?”
“Yes.” She swallowed hard at the idea, but she knew she meant it. She would do anything to protect her son.
“Then find cover and be ready to shoot if anyone comes through the woods toward us. They won’t be expecting us and if we’re lucky and there aren’t too many of them, we can pick them off before they get to us.”
“What do you want me to do?” Brian asked.
“Take Ian and go about a hundred yards back. If we go down, you run, as far and as fast as you can. We’ll try to distract them long enough for you to get away.”
Andrea drew the gun and moved to stand behind a tree about twenty yards from Jack. She couldn’t believe this was happening—that she was about to engage in a shoot-out in the woods, in the middle of the night, with killers. She was an ordinary woman—a mother and a psychologist. Nothing in her training had prepared her for this.
She heard Brian move away. She didn’t look back, afraid she might cry if she saw Ian leaving her. Instead, she gripped the gun more tightly and tried to focus on the glow of light coming from the clearing they had just left. The throb of the helicopter rose until it was too loud to talk over. Light pierced the trees, and then the engine slowed but didn’t die altogether. A door slammed. She imagined the killers piling out, in their battle gear, weapons ready. How many of them were there? Jack had said the helicopter would hold six people in addition to the pilot. How many men had died in the explosion on the mountain? Or had they brought in reinforcements, fresh troops who weren’t exhausted by a trek up and down mountains?
“Agent Jack Prescott!” The words had the hollow, echoing sound of a command issued through a bullhorn.
Jack stiffened but made no response.
“This is Captain A. J. Lansing of the La Plata County Sheriff’s Department SWAT. Special Agent Ted Blessing contacted us. We understand you have a woman and a child and another young man with you. If you can hear us, please acknowledge.”
Jack relaxed. “We’re here!” he shouted. “We’re coming out!”
Andrea’s first sight of their rescuers was of a man dressed in black-and-olive fatigues with a large German shepherd by his side. Ian gave an exclamation of surprise and leaned forward to gape at the dog. Andrea took her son from Brian and followed Jack into the clearing. The helicopter had shut down, making it easier to talk. “Dr. McNeil,” the man greeted her. “I’m Alan Lansing. And this must be Ian.”
“What’s your dog’s name?” Ian asked.
“This is Bella.” At the sound of her name, Bella wagged her tail back and forth.
Two other SWAT team members joined them. “How did you find us
?” Jack asked.
“We located you using the ping on your phone.”
“Do we need to radio ahead for a medic?” one of the officers asked, eyeing Jack’s makeshift crutch.
“I’m fine.” Jack tossed the stick aside.
Andrea wanted to protest that he obviously wasn’t fine—that none of them were. But Jack probably didn’t need a medic right away, and he wouldn’t appreciate her embarrassing him in front of another law enforcement officer.
“We’ve got food and water and blankets in the chopper,” Lansing said. “Let’s get loaded up and get you folks home.”
They filed to the helicopter and were waiting to climb in when a burst of gunfire tore through the area.
Chapter Sixteen
Bullets rang against the side of the helicopter and one of the SWAT members collapsed. Andrea screamed. Then she and Ian were shoved to the ground. Jack slammed his body into theirs and rolled them beneath the chopper. He lay on top of them, his weight crushing yet reassuring. Ian began to cry. “Shh. It’s going to be okay.” Andrea tried to comfort him. The shooting had stopped, but the explosions still echoed in her ears. Her heart hammered as if she’d run up a mountain, and Jack’s weight on top of her made it difficult to breathe.
“Where are the others?” she whispered, afraid the shooter might hear.
“Brian is inside the chopper with the pilot,” Jack said. “Lansing and the dog took cover behind some rocks. I don’t know where the third man is.”
The sun was just breaking over the horizon and in the still-faint pinkish light, she could make out a narrow section of the clearing in front of the chopper. The officer who had been shot lay facedown in the snow, very still. Too still. She hoped Ian couldn’t see him.
“Where is the shooter?” she asked.
“On the west side of the clearing. He must have been following us. He came up the same trail we did.” He shifted, taking some of his weight from her. “I’m going to try to get a better look at him.”
“No.” She clutched at his wrist. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I won’t do anything stupid.” He moved until he lay on the ground facing her. “I’ve got too much to live for to take foolish risks, but I’ve got to do whatever I can to end this.” He kissed her, hard and fierce. She wanted to cling to him, to beg him not to leave her. But she knew he wasn’t the type of man who would stand by and let others be hurt while he had the power to prevent it. That was one of the things she loved about him.
“Come back to me,” she whispered, but he had already moved away.
* * *
JACK CROUCHED BEHIND the wheel strut of the helicopter and scanned the edge of the woods, searching for the shooter. The sun rising behind him cast a feeble light over the clearing, the shadow of the helicopter stretching out on the ground directly in front of him. Only one gun had fired on the group, so he thought it possible there was only one man—perhaps the only survivor of the bomb Jack had launched.
Movement to Jack’s right distracted him. He shifted slightly and recognized Captain Lansing slumped behind a boulder. Blood stained the shoulder of his uniform, and the German shepherd, Bella, lay curled against him. The dog watched Jack, ears up and eyes alert, but didn’t move.
Jack needed to draw out the shooter. He didn’t want to give the man enough time to circle around behind them. Taking careful aim, he fired at the point he thought the shots had emanated from.
The shooter responded with another blast of gunfire, bullets blasting chunks of fiberglass from the side of the helicopter. Ian began to wail and the gunfire shifted, hitting the ground right in front of where Andrea and Ian lay. The thought of either one of them being hit was a physical pain gripping Jack’s chest. “Come out where I can see you, you coward!” he shouted.
The only response was gunfire, but not from the shooter. Captain Lansing had raised himself up enough to fire his own weapon toward the shooter. A muffled cry indicated that—maybe—the captain had found his target.
Lansing caught Jack’s eye and jerked his head toward the woods behind the chopper. Jack nodded. If he made the cover of the trees, he could slip around behind the shooter. If Lansing kept the man’s attention focused on him, Jack would have a good chance of getting close without being detected.
Lansing opened fire again and Jack ran, keeping his body low and ignoring the pain in his thigh. He stopped a few yards into the trees to catch his breath and listen. The shooter had returned fire again. As far as Jack could tell, the man hadn’t changed locations.
He shifted his gaze to the helicopter. The sun had almost completely risen now, light glinting off the chopper’s drooping blades. He couldn’t see Andrea and Ian from here, but he knew they were under there. As long as he and Lansing kept the shooter busy, the man wouldn’t be able to move in closer and get a clear shot at Andrea and the others.
Slowly, stealthily, Jack crept from tree to tree. Every few minutes a fresh burst of gunfire alerted him to the gunman’s location. Then, as he reached the west side of the clearing, a movement ahead caught his eye. A darker shadow shifted between the tree trunks. Jack took a step toward it and a twig snapped beneath his boot. The shadowy figure whirled, gun raised. Jack dived behind a tree.
The shooter shifted again, perhaps to get a better look at Jack. A shaft of light cut between the trees, spotlighting the side of the man’s face before he ducked behind the tree trunk once more.
But that one glimpse had been enough to stop Jack’s breath. A dizzying flood of emotion and memory washed over him: suddenly, he was standing on the front deck of the mountain home that had been rented by the suspected ringleader of the terrorist cell. Search Team Seven had a warrant to search the property and plant listening devices they would use to gather evidence to make their case against Duane Braeswood and the people with him in the house. Gus Mathers stood in the yard a few feet below Jack, tracing a phone line around the side of the house.
Then a man stepped out from behind a tree and shot Gus. Jack saw his friend fall, then turned to look at the shooter. Their eyes met, and the man raised his rifle to fire at Jack. Jack dived to the side so that, though the bullets put him in the hospital for weeks, he didn’t die. The image of the man’s face shimmered in his mind, as crystal clear and unforgettable as his own reflection.
“You!” Jack hadn’t even realized he had spoken out loud, but the single word brought him back to the present—and to the people who needed his protection now. He stared at the man, who had peered from behind the tree at his shout. “You killed my friend,” Jack said—a statement, not an accusation.
“And I will kill you,” the man said, and raised his weapon.
But Jack had already raised his pistol. He fired once...twice...and the man slumped to the ground, his gun sliding across the snow and coming to rest against another tree a few feet away.
Jack didn’t know how long he stood over the body, the pistol in his hand, before Andrea joined him. “Jack?” She spoke softly, concern and caution shaping her expression.
He holstered his weapon and turned to her. “He’s the man who shot Gus,” he said. “I remembered.”
“I’m glad he didn’t shoot you.” She didn’t quite smile, but it was enough to shatter the last brittle barrier of reserve within him. He held out his arms and she came to him. They comforted each other for a long moment as the sun rose higher in the sky and the helicopter’s engines roared to life.
“Where’s Ian?” he asked after a while.
“He’s in the helicopter with Brian and the others. Captain Lansing is shot, but Corporal Scott thinks he’s going to be okay.” Her expression saddened. “Sergeant Rialto wasn’t so lucky.” She pressed her forehead to his chest. “Jack, I was so afraid.”
“Yeah.” He patted her back. “I was afraid, too. But we’re okay now. We’re all okay.”
She looked up at him, some inner strength illuminating her face despite the weariness. “Let’s go home now,” she said.
He put his arm around her. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”
* * *
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you went through all of that and you still look so...so normal!” Chelsea pressed her hand against her chest and studied Andrea across the kitchen table, two days after her return home. “It’s like something out of a movie or something.”
“It’s definitely not something I want to relive.” Andrea sipped her coffee. “I’m glad it’s over and I’m ready for life to get back to normal.”
“Ian seems to be doing okay.” Chelsea turned toward the living room and Andrea followed her gaze to where Ian was playing with baby Charlotte.
“He’s doing great,” she said. Though Ian had slept with her their first night home, that had been as much for her benefit as her son’s and now he was back in his regular routine—although he had asked about Jack several times during the past two days.
“What about Jack?” Chelsea asked. “Have you heard from him?”
“He called and left a message while I was at work yesterday—just checking to see how we were doing.” No great declarations of love or even an invitation to dinner. I wanted to make sure you and Ian are okay. It’s been crazy busy here, but you’ve been on my mind. The kind of message any friend might leave.
“Are you going to see him again?” Chelsea asked.
