by Jess Walker
Sam saw it. It looked to be an old abandoned railway tunnel carved into the side of the mountain.
“Keep going and don’t stop,” Lawrence hollered.
The SUV burst through the tunnel entrance, smashing through a flimsy wooden gate.
The helicopter wasn’t so lucky. It exploded in a bright ball of fire; its momentum halted suddenly by the impact against the rock face of the mountain. The man suspended in the air had managed to cut himself loose seconds before the collision. He clung to the hood of the SUV as Sam accelerated down the length of the tunnel. He crawled up the hood, trying to enter the vehicle through the smashed windshield. He got halfway in when Lawrence swung the butt end of the riffle against the assailant’s head. It connected with a sharp crack. The impact sent the guy reeling out the interior of the cabin and back onto the hood.
Sam had had enough. He slammed on the brakes. The SUV shuddered to a stop, catapulting a guy in black fatigues through the air like a rocket. Seconds later, he slammed headfirst into an abandoned railway cart. The impact killed him instantly. His body lay in a pool of his own blood.
All three exited the SUV. The grisly sight of the body crumpled in a heap was confirmation enough to Sam that he was dead. He didn’t need to walk any closer.
Lawrence pointed ahead.
“It’s a good thing you stopped when you did.”
Twenty yards ahead, the ceiling had caved in. A large pile of rocks, ten feet high, blocked the entire tunnel.
“I’ll be damned,” Sam whispered. “Looks like our hitchhiker friend saved our bacon. I wouldn’t have stopped in time had it not been for him.”
Sam walked toward the large pile of rocks. From what he could see, there was enough room on either side of the rock pile to walk around by foot. Sam stared back at the blinding headlights of their SUV.
“I think we’ve reached the end of the line. We’ll have to turn around,” Lawrence said, breaking into Sam’s thoughts.
Silver started to bark.
Lawrence and Sam looked at each other. They both knew what that bark meant. Trouble was on its way.
Seconds later, a new pair of headlights emerged at a fast speed.
“Looks like our friends from the SUV have caught up,” Sam said.
“And our only option is to go straight ahead,” Lawrence said. “We sure as hell can’t go back.”
“Go west young man,” Dexter bellowed, as he followed Sam and Lawrence around the big pile of rocks.
CHAPTER 21
November 9, 2016, Wee Hours Past Midnight—Somewhere Outside of Porcupine Mountain…
Sam retrieved his flashlight from the rucksack and turned it on as he jogged ahead.
“Let’s get a move on, shall we. We don’t want to be late for the dinner party.”
“What’s for dinner?” Dexter inquired.
“It’ll be your ass, cooked well-done if you don’t get a move on,” snapped Lawrence.
“I heard it’s all you can eat,” muttered Sam, “so we best not be late.”
They ran along the track for a hundred yards and then stopped. Sam turned off his flashlight and motioned for them to remain silent.
He heard the distinct sound of footsteps running down the tunnel. Bobbing beams of light bounced off the walls as the men in pursuit started to close the gap.
Sam pondered their next moves like a chess player thinking five steps ahead. They were catching up to them. Lawrence and Dexter couldn’t move very fast. Their physical conditions were poor, and their stamina was low. They couldn’t outrun them. That wasn’t an option, so they would have to outthink them.
The solution to his problem stood before him, staring him in the face. A rusted-out metal door beckoned. It looked to be an exit. Where it led, he didn’t know, but with any luck, it would take them outside.
Sam motioned toward it. “This way.”
He tried the door, but it wouldn’t open, so he took a couple of steps back and rushed forward, lowering his shoulder to ram the barrier. The door flew open with a loud bang. They hustled through, entering a room no bigger than a walk-in closet. The walls and ceiling consisted of sheets of rusted, corrugated metal patched on like papier mâché. Lawrence found a six-foot, cast iron rod on the floor. He closed the door behind them and wedged the rod between the push-handle and doorframe, affixing it to a locked position.
“This should buy us a little time,” he huffed.
Ahead of them was a staircase that descended.
Dexter lagged behind them like a lost schoolboy. “I guess we have nowhere to go but down. Downward away,” he shouted.
“Those drugs must be really messing up his mind,” Sam said.
“He’s always like this. Sober or drugged, you get a lot of the same. Dexter is Dexter, all one hundred and fifty pounds of him—corny jokes and all,” Lawrence replied.
They travelled down three flights of stairs. At the bottom, the cramped hallway, lined by old cylinder cement blocks, continued to go straight. They followed it for five minutes until they hit another door. Sam turned the knob and flung the door open. After taking several steps forward, he stopped. Pointed, only inches away from his face, was an assault rifle. It was Sergei.
The Russian cast all three of them a dirty smile.
“You miss me?”
Leo stood to the side of the door, slightly behind them, with his rifle drawn.
“And you must be the infamous Sam,” Sergei said. “The same kid who managed to slip between our fingers. You’re good, kid, I’ll give you that.”
Sam glanced back at Lawrence. “I was taught by the best.”
Sergei responded with the butt end of his rifle against Sam’s head. The blow knocked him to the ground.
Lawrence attempted to intervene but got the same treatment.
“Get to your feet, scum!” Leo yelled.
They got up slowly.
Dexter stood frozen to the spot with his hands up watching the scene before him unfold like a bad movie. Sam glanced around and weighed his options, looking for a possible escape route. They had just exited through a door that led out the side of the mountain and stood on a rock-covered ledge, which stretched twenty yards out from the door. A wooden railing ran around the perimeter of the ledge with a set of stairs led down the middle, and a sheer vertical drop of sixty yards to the bottom was on the other side of the railing.
Leo spoke into his throat mic, “Hey boss. We got them. We’ll see you soon. Over.”
He spoke again, this time to someone different. “Alpha team, we got our boys, proceed back to your vehicles. We’ll meet at the checkpoint. Over.”
Dexter looked at him with a questioning expression. “Just out of curiosity, how did you find us? How did you know we’d be walking out that door?”
Leo looked amused by the question and was eager to give him an answer. He pointed at their feet. “Your boots. We inserted a small tracking device in the sole of your boots when you were knocked out in the basement. It’s about the same size as a small thumbtack. We put them in as a safety precaution. If you somehow managed to escape, we would have a way to find you. Good thing we put them in.”
Dexter shook his head. “Son of a gun.”
“Ain’t technology great,” Sergei muttered.
“Just peachy,” sighed Lawrence.
Leo shoved the rifle into the small of Dexter’s back. “Now move!”
All three complied as they dragged their feet to the stairway. Sergei joined Leo and walked behind them, keeping his rifle trained on their backs.
A question crept into Sam’s mind as he walked toward the stairway. Where was Silver? They didn’t know about the wolf as he hadn’t come out with them. He must still be inside. Sam glanced back and was relieved to see the door was still open. Silver would be waiting for a command. He thought it was high time for them to get f
amiliar with the wolf in an intimate way.
He let out three short whistles.
The wolf sprang through the open door in a flash of movement and lunged at Leo. Silver landed on the Russian’s back, sinking his fangs deep into his neck, clamping down hard. Leo swirled around and let out a high-pitched shriek as he fell to the ground, knocked over by the wolf’s momentum. He let go of his rifle and tried to pull the wolf off him. His attempts were in vain as the animal held firm.
Sergei turned toward his fallen comrade, shocked by the sudden intrusion. Sam used the moment of distraction to his advantage. He turned around and charged at Sergei who was eight feet away. He closed the gap quickly and tackled him, driving him backward against the railing. The momentum carried Sam through him like a sledgehammer, knocking him up and over the railing. The Russian plunged to his death, landing on a boulder in the darkness below. Sam turned around and saw the lifeless body of Leo. His throat had been ripped out by the wolf.
All three of them stood in stunned silence, amazed at what had just happened in under thirty seconds. One minute they had been prisoners, the next, they were free men.
“What just happened?” asked Dexter.
Sam stared at the mangled body of the Russian. “What does it look like?”
“I would say they got what was coming to them,” Lawrence interjected. “They got their asses handed to them.”
“Better take off our boots,” Dexter said.
Lawrence and Dexter took off their boots and threw them over the edge. After a short pause, Lawrence tugged Leo’s boots off his inert body and was pleased to see they were his size.
“Sorry Dexter, looks like you’ll have to go barefoot.”
Sam did a quick search of Leo’s body. He found a set of keys and the throat mic complete with ear piece.
He flashed them the set of keys. “Looks like we got ourselves a new SUV to drive.”
They walked down the flight of stairs to the bottom. The SUV sat a couple yards behind a pocket of trees. Sam studied the SUV as he walked toward it but saw nothing suspicious. “Looks clear.”
Lawrence edged close to it from the other side and peeked through the windows. “Affirmative. Looks clear from this angle.”
All three piled into the SUV. Sam jumped into the driver’s side.
“Silver, get in!” Sam hollered.
The wolf bounded toward them, jumping into the backseat. Sam put the key into the ignition and turned it. The SUV thundered to life. He floored it and the vehicle shot out, tearing down the road.
“This seems like déjà vu all over again.” Dexter grimaced in the backseat.
The headlights carved a path of light through the darkness as the SUV sped down the logging road.
“Turn left up ahead!” Lawrence shouted.
“Got it,” Sam replied. He turned back onto the main road.
They made it a couple miles down the road when they spotted something in the distance.
“Is that what I think it is?” Dexter whined.
A new pair of headlights bounced into the night sky as a vehicle quickly approached.
“Damn!” Sam cursed. “You thinking what I’m thinking?
“Sure am,” replied Lawrence as he squinted his eyes at the oncoming headlights.
“I’m thinking it’s our friends. Keep going and whatever you do, don’t slow down.”
Both vehicles passed each other, each travelling in the opposite directions at full speed. Dexter cranked his head around to get a good look as the vehicle flew by.
“Yup, it’s them, alright.”
The red brake lights glowed in the dark as the vehicle they had just passed slowed to a stop. Sam kept driving, pushing the accelerator down further.
The throat mic blared to life.
“Where the hell are you guys going? What happened to meeting at the check point first?” the voice boomed.
“I’d know that voice anywhere,” Dexter said. “It’s Bubba.”
“Who’s Bubba?” Sam asked.
“The same man we’re trying to run away from,” replied Dexter. “The man who’s behind all of this.”
“Can anybody impersonate a Russian accent?” asked Lawrence.
“I can do a little French, if that helps,” quipped Dexter.
The mic turned to static. The SUV in the rear-view mirror spun around.
“Looks like they’re onto us,” hissed Lawrence.
He grabbed the throat mic and pressed down to talk.
“Bubba, long time no speak. Your boys back at the train tunnel ran into some technical difficulties. They couldn’t come along for the ride, but they were kind enough to lend us their keys. Nice wheels, by the way. The leather seats and the heated steering are nice touches.”
The only audible noise was Bubba’s labored breathing. A couple seconds passed before Bubba’s voice boomed through again.
“When I get through with the two of you, you’re going to wish you were dead!” he hissed. “I’m going rip out your eyes and shove them down your throat so deep, you’ll have to wear shades over your asshole.”
“Cute,” Lawrence replied. “Did you just think of that? I like it.”
“You little pedantic son of a bitch. I’m coming for you, get ready.”
Lawrence replied, “You can try, asshole, but you won’t get very far. First you have to catch us.” Lawrence ended the conversation by shutting off the mic.
“He has some serious anger management issues, doesn’t he,” Dexter said with a look of amusement.
“I’m sure they’ll have anger management counselling for him in jail,” mused Lawrence.
“Ah, fellas,” cautioned Sam, “don’t look now, but it looks like they’ve got the road blocked up ahead.”
After he rounded a bend, the winding road turned into a straight stretch with fields on either side. At the end of it, an uprooted tree lay sideways across the width of the road. In front of the tree stood a lone gunman with his rifle aimed directly at them. The gunman fired. A shot rang out through the air. Moments later, a bullet struck the front driver’s side.
Sam scanned the field to his right. “Anybody up for a little off-roading?”
“Let’s see what the four-wheel drive can do on this bad boy,” Dexter shouted.
“I take that as a yes, then.”
Sam turned the wheel hard to the right, and the SUV skipped over a ditch and smashed through a wooden fence before entering the field. All three of them bounced about in their seats as the SUV tore down the field, flying over the bumps.
“Where are we going?” asked Lawrence.
“Anywhere but the road,” replied Sam.
He scanned the field ahead and kept the accelerator planted firmly down. Minutes later, Sam saw headlights behind them.
“Looks like our company is back.”
“I guess they wanted to join us for some off-roading fun,” Dexter replied.
“There’s another SUV!” yelled Lawrence. “We got two to worry about, now.”
Ahead of them and to their left, two hundred yards away, was the second SUV, angling toward them from the road, attempting to intercept their path.
“That must be the same dude from the roadblock,” stammered Dexter. “These guys are relentless SOBs.”
A river came into view to the right of them and Lawrence’s eyes widened. “I know where we are. That’s the same river I take my students paddling on in the spring.”
As they neared the river, the SUV’s single headlight illuminated a green sign that proclaimed in bold white lettering, ‘Poaching and Hunting is Prohibited.’
“I know that sign, too. Just around the bend, there’ll be a small, man-made dam.”
True to Lawrence’s word, as the SUV rounded the bend, the dam came into view.
“The ground is high up o
n the other side of the dam where the water exits, about twenty feet up from the water’s surface. You can’t see it, but it’s there.”
“What are you driving at?” asked Sam.
“When we portaged it, it was too steep to walk down. We had to walk further downstream to deposit the canoes into the water. There’s a natural lip, almost looks like a man-made jump, just before the sheer drop to the water.
“And let me guess, you think we can jump it,” Sam said.
“I think we can, and I think we will,” rasped Lawrence. “What other choice do we have?”
Sam fixed his gaze on the dam two football fields away. He drove the SUV in a wide arc until the dam lay straight ahead. Looking in the rear-view mirror, he saw that the vehicles behind had closed the gap.
“You see the lip?” asked Lawrence.
Sam nodded his head.
“Sure as hell do.”
Sam hammered the accelerator down and clenched the steering wheel tightly with both hands. All of his attention remained focused straight ahead.
The SUV rapidly closed the distance until it was only yards away.
“Hold on tight!” yelled Sam.
The SUV hit the lip at full speed, airborne until the front wheels landed hard on the other side. The impact was jarring. The SUV bounced off the ground several times, wobbling to stay upright until Sam eventually regained control, skidding it to a stop.
“That was fun, can we do it again?” cried Dexter.
Sam looked around to get his bearings. They were wedged between the river and the forest with nowhere to go. Trees surrounded the flat area of land they sat on, the size of a small corner store parking lot. There were no roads or trails. Sam maneuvered the SUV directly over the spot they had landed on, so it sat parallel to the river’s edge, only a couple of feet away.
“Get out!” Sam hollered.
Dexter was confused.
“Why are we parked here?”
“If we can’t drive out of here, we’ll make it hard for them to have a clear landing, if they choose to jump it.”
Sam saw the headlights of the two SUVs approaching. He grabbed the gear out of the vehicle and retrieved the rifle for himself. He gave Lawrence the Desert Eagle Magnum handgun he found stashed in the glove box.
