Perfect Touch: A Novel

by Elizabeth Lowell

  She responded to the command in his voice before she was even aware of shifting position. The wheel bucked and jumped in her hand like a wild steer.

  How did he manage to drive? Sara thought, fighting to hold on to the wheel.

  The truck slowed and he opened the door.

  “What are you—” she began.

  The helicopter gunner opened fire again, taking aim at the front end of the truck. The first shots raked the bottom edge of the front windshield, turning it into a wild web of cracks. An uneven series of holes opened across the hood. Steam erupted from some of them.

  “Up here!” Jay shouted.

  She came all the way up and out of the foot well onto the seat, holding the wheel with one hand and bracing against the dashboard.

  Before she could ask what he was doing, he was already out the door, standing on the running board, Glock out and aimed up toward the sky. He took a firm pull on the trigger and waited. The helicopter hovered about a hundred feet off, just pacing the truck.

  The helo itself is a pretty big target, Jay thought, but picking out anything specific on it is a fast way to failure.

  He squeezed off three shots from his .45. The slugs were big enough that they would pierce any interior walls and probably the side doors as well if they were closed. He was sure that the first shot was true. The other two were fast, a screaming double tap telling the attackers that their quarry was armed.

  The gunner had been reloading his Uzi when the first bullet hit. He almost dropped his weapon at the sound of incoming fire.

  Not used to it, are you, you chickenshit son of a bitch, Jay thought with satisfaction.

  The helo reeled away like a dog smacked across the nose, breaking hard and peeling wide to the right.

  Overreacting. Amateur mistake that could kill everyone aboard. And wouldn’t that be sweet—if they don’t crash on top of us.

  “Jay! We’re losing power!” Sara yelled over the noise.

  He had already felt the change in the truck. Something more vital than the radiator had been hit.

  “We have to bail,” he shouted.

  With a swift motion he holstered the pistol and held a hand out to her. Their momentum had slowed to a human running pace.

  “You’re going first,” he said in a voice loud enough to carry over the dying truck and all-too-lively helicopter. “The second you hit the ground, roll. Then run for the rocks and find a place to get under cover from the front and above.”

  “You’re crazy!” she yelled. “We’re still moving!”

  “Roll and then run for the hillside. Go.”

  As he spoke, he pulled hard on her, lifting her out of the seat. Then he released her.

  Sara shot past him with a stifled shriek. Still in the air, she curled into an awkward ball and landed hard, well away from the truck.

  “Go, go, GO,” Jay shouted at her, falling back into his military training.

  She scrambled to her feet, oriented herself, and began a lurching run toward the cover of rocks.

  The truck was at a walking pace now, as each bump bled off a little more momentum. Jay pulled the pistol again and tracked the helo. It was making a slow, cautious return, wary now that its prey had demonstrated an ability to shoot back.

  Not much cover for me if the helo hovers in place. But if Sara is right, they’ve been avoiding the trailer.

  He weighed the risks and yanked the rifle loose. They won’t come as close to a .30-30.

  The sound of the chopper increased suddenly. Somebody had decided on a fast, roaring run. Jay felt a hard push of wind in his face and smiled. That helo had a vicious headwind buffeting it.

  He looked over in the direction Sara had run. There was a hint of green and gold before her flannel shirt was yanked up and out of sight beneath a tall outcropping of weathered granite.

  Good. Now stay there and don’t stick your head out.

  The helo was pulling closer, nose down, hanging like a deadly ornament from its whirling rotors. Jay didn’t have both cover and room to use the rifle. He laid it on the seat of the truck and jerked the Glock from its holster. Standing in the door frame, covering as much of his body as possible behind the door, he took aim and waited. He wanted a shot that did more than make noise. Even with his pants pockets loaded with extra clips and ammo, he wasn’t wasting any more bullets.

  Gunfire from the helo ripped an uneven string of bullets into the grass and then across the top of the truck, right through the roof and into the passenger compartment.

  Jay returned fire with a one-two, one-two rhythm of shots. The first shots were wide. He corrected and heard pings as his own shots went home. Before he could take better aim, rotor wash and the smell of exhaust hit him hard, along with anything loose on the ground that had been sucked up by the rotors.

  As he cleared his vision, the helo roared past. He saw the machine come around, shuddering in the headwind. Mentally he measured his chances of running for cover with Sara.

  No way. Helo is coming in again. All I’d do is lead them right to her.

  He grabbed the rifle and hugged the outside of the truck bed as he moved back to get the trailer between himself and the helo.

  Mighty valuable paintings here. You didn’t shoot at them. Not even with me and my .45 lighting you up.

  The wind roared hard, laying the grass down flat. He hoped Sara would think to tie her hair back and control the flapping tails of her flannel shirt so that they didn’t give her away. But it was too late to tell her, too late for anything but the helo coming right at him.

  Come on. Come on, you son of a bitch.

  Then he realized the bird was turning, banking toward the mountainside. It began to quarter the area like a dog looking for a scent. The helo was on a hunting run.

  But not for him.

  Sara!

  CHAPTER 22

  THE HAMMERING ROAR of the helicopter came closer and closer with every pass across the mountainside. When the wind from the rotors slammed down at Sara, she tried to crawl inside the granite itself. She felt the edge of her borrowed flannel shirt tugged free by the rotor wash and wind, whipping against her body. Debris and grit choked her. The sound echoing inside her boulder hideout was so loud she felt like screaming along with it.

  But for all the noise, she couldn’t fix on the direction of the helicopter.

  Where are they?

  Which way should I run?

  She edged forward until she could see through a hole just beyond the rim of the rocky overhang she had flung herself into. The natural hollow wasn’t deep enough to protect her fully, but it was the best she could find. It was littered with small bits of rock that pelted her when the rotor wash hit just right.

  But what really worried her was that she hadn’t heard any more shots. The fear of Jay lying wounded—or worse—on the cold mountainside was a screaming inside her greater than any mechanical noise could drown out.

  He probably found cover, like me, she told herself savagely. Don’t freak out. It won’t do any good. You screamed yourself raw when the Camaro crashed and Kelly died so slowly—and what good did screaming do, anyway?

  Do what Jay said.

  Stay put.

  The roar grew louder and then louder still.

  The helicopter isn’t going after the truck. Why?

  She didn’t think about Jay anymore. She couldn’t. If she did, she would run screaming down the mountain.

  She peered over the edge and saw that the helicopter was heading right at her. Suddenly her cover seemed too small, too flimsy. The urge to break and run for somewhere safer almost strangled her as she fought it down. There was no time to get a better hiding spot. All she could do was press herself farther into the shallow trench and pray that the overhanging slab of granite concealed enough of her.

  Cold wind whipped up in advance of the helicopter. The sky went hollow and black, sound echoing. She tried to make herself smaller, thinner. Invisible. But if her head was under cover, her boots stuck out. The op
ening was too narrow for her to fold up, much less to bring her knees under her chest.

  The thumping of the rotor blades was like an alien heartbeat taking over her body, shaking her. Rock bit into her fingertips as she tried to claw closer to safety. She didn’t think. She couldn’t. The noise consumed her. She barely noticed the swirling grit biting into exposed skin.

  The helicopter hovered, slamming small rocks and sticks around. A violent storm raged through her hiding place.

  Gunfire stitched through the storm. It was almost random, searching.

  They’re trying to flush me out like some screaming bimbo in a bad movie.

  The flapping of her flannel shirt made sunlight stutter through the opening near her feet. She had no protection from a ricochet. She grit her teeth together so she couldn’t scream and pulled her feet in as much as she could, wanting to leave nothing exposed.

  But there just wasn’t enough room.

  Come on, come on, give me a human target, Jay thought savagely.

  Shooting the tail rotor out could too easily swerve the helo right into Sara. He kept on tracking the helicopter with his .30-30 but didn’t have a shot. The bird was hovering low over the scree and shrubs jumbled at the base of the steep slope, working the land, spraying occasional shots.

  Don’t move, sweetheart. Please don’t move. The noise won’t kill you—but bullets will.

  He knew her instinct would be to run from the threat. No matter how brave she was, everybody had a breaking point.

  I’ve got to get them off her.

  Suddenly the helicopter dropped and was eclipsed by the trailer’s bulk, which had been shielding Jay. His former shelter was now in the way. He had to get in the open to shoot the chopper down.

  He ducked away from the trailer’s cover and stood, feet apart, steady as if he had roots in the land. He didn’t notice the rifle’s weight any more than he would notice the hot shells ejecting when he worked the lever. Breathing out, he gently brought the trigger back.

  The shooting from the helicopter stopped.

  Reloading, Jay thought. Now if the helo would just get its ass out of my face I could—

  Wind buffeted the helicopter, swinging its tail.

  He pulled the trigger.

  One.

  The shot boomed out of the barrel and went right through the open passenger compartment, starboard side. Through the scope, he saw the pilot jump and the helo lurch to the left.

  Two.

  He settled against the recoil and followed, taking aim at the pilot again. A spark arced off the metal skin near the back of the open side door. He didn’t wait to fire again.

  Three.

  The helicopter turned in place, but not quickly enough to change its profile in time. Over the booming shots of his rifle, Jay heard a long and wild chatter of the Uzi firing, the whole clip going off, finger down. But it wasn’t aimed near anyone at all.

  Four.

  He’d dropped the barrel just a little bit to follow the open door as best he could. He couldn’t see the gunman anymore. The next shot hit farther back along the passenger compartment. Through a gap in the clouds, the sun flashed hard on the helo’s enameled skin as the pilot turned the machine to reorient it.

  Jay let the last shots go.

  Five.

  Six.

  As the helo spun toward him, he slung the strap of the empty rifle over his head and drew the Glock. At the rate the helo was coming, the pistol was the better choice.

  More bullets, faster to reload.

  The chopper was nearly head-on to him now, and less than sixty feet away. Grit and small rocks and debris scoured his face as the helo closed in. He shot furiously. A cloudy spot formed on the glass of the cockpit window in the instant before the shock wave of the bullet turned the windshield into an opaque mass of cracks.

  Jay couldn’t see anything through it—but then, neither could the attackers. He hit the ground and lay flat as the helo skids passed over him close enough to touch. When the bird lifted and spun away at a sharp angle, he was on his feet, pistol ready.

  No more shots came.

  Chickenshit bastard’s probably sucking on the deck rather than shooting out the door.

  Jay turned and ran hard, angling away from where he’d last seen Sara. If there was any fight left in the attackers, he didn’t want to point out her hiding place. As he ran, he changed the magazine in his Glock. If he had time, reloading the rifle would be next.

  Roaring past him, the helicopter wobbled as it turned to intersect his path. Then it swung away again. A thin stream of smoke washed into a corkscrew pattern as the helo retreated.

  There was no more gunfire.

  Jay kept running, but he changed his angle, each step now bringing him closer to Sara’s hiding place.

  The helicopter’s sound shifted as it turned and headed back in the direction it had originally come from.

  Keep down, sweetheart. Don’t assume they won’t make another pass.

  Dodging boulders and scrub, he ran flat out, then dived behind a knucklebone of rock that was too high to jump over. He twisted before he hit the ground, landing in a controlled roll. Before he could blink his eyes clear of grit and see the retreat for himself, his ears told him that the helo had had enough and was leaving at full throttle.

  It wasn’t a pretty retreat. The pilot and the wind were wrestling for control of the airship.

  Die, you bastards. Just put it in the mountain and fucking die.

  “Sara! Can you hear me?” he yelled.

  Nothing answered but the fading drone of the helo.

  “SARA!”

  An indistinct sound came back to him.

  His name.

  Instantly he was clawing his way over rocks to more even ground where he could run toward the sound. He heard his name again, called to Sara again, and ran toward her hiding place. When he reached it, he slid to his knees, reaching inside to pull her out.

  And felt blood.

  “J-Jay . . . ?”

  “Don’t move, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”

  God, let me change places with her. Let me be the one hurt and have her be whole.

  But it hadn’t happened in Afghanistan and it wouldn’t happen here.

  “Where does it hurt?” he asked, his voice sounding a lot calmer than he felt.

  “I—” The word ended in a sound of pain as she tried to sit up.

  “Easy, love. Easy. Talk to me. Where do you hurt? Can you move your arms and legs?”

  “Yes. There’s just no room.”

  “I’m going to put my hands under your shoulders and ease you out of there. Tell me if it hurts.”

  “Do it,” she said hoarsely. “Get me out of this coffin.”

  His thighs and shoulders flexed as he inched her far enough out from under the overhang to see where she was wounded. A gash in her neck bled way too freely.

  Without even being aware of it, he shucked off the rifle and his jacket and tore his left shirtsleeve away from his shoulder.

  “Get me—out,” she said, struggling to move.

  “Easy, love. Let me bandage your neck first.” He tore off his other sleeve for a compress and bound her neck as much as he could. “Now, one good pull and—What the hell is that?”

  She was so relieved to see sky beyond his face that she almost passed out. Instead she took several deep breaths and tried to figure out what he was talking about.

  “. . . nature of the emergency. Repeat. What is the nature of the emergency?”

  In disbelief Jay pried her fingers away from the phone she had hung on to like life itself.

  “Is this 911?” he demanded.

  “What is the nature of the emergency?” The woman’s voice was maddeningly calm.

  “A woman has been shot. Bleeding is controlled but not stopped.”

  His hand pressed on the bandage as he spoke, trying to stem the red tide. The shirtsleeve was already saturated with blood.

  Keep a steady pressure. Don’t worry ab
out the dirt. They’ll clean her up at the hospital.

  “Understood. What is your location?”

  “I’m on the old Weiss road at the base of Satler Ridge. We need a medical chopper scrambled to our location.” He spoke clearly, calmly. “Fast. Or she’ll bleed out.”

  And inside himself he screamed.

  “Could you be more precise about the location, please?” the woman asked.

  “We’re in the wilderness. Fix on the damned phone!”

  “Working on it. There it is. Medevac is getting ready to dust off.”

  Relief went through him at the familiar term. “You served?”

  “Half a tour. Injured. Do you want me to stay on the line until the helo gets there?”

  “Not necessary. Thanks for your help.”

  He left the connection open and focused on his bloody fingers, keeping the pressure even. Sara was breathing steadily, but too shallow.

  Distant thunder rolled up the slope.

  Bloody hell. Medevac just loves flying in thunderstorms.

  But fly they would if there was a real chance of saving a life.

  Gently Jay touched Sara’s cheek. It was too cool.

  He wrapped his jacket around her, propped up her feet on a handy rock, and waited.

  “Look on the bright side, sweetheart,” he said, pillowing her head with his left hand. “I’m not having to hold down the LZ—landing zone to you—by myself while trying to bandage what few men survived. That’s how I got to be called captain. I was the last man standing.”

  He heard his wild laugh and throttled it. Keeping pressure on her wound, he memorized the lines of her face, touching her gently, keeping his savage rage bottled up inside.

  Listening to her breathe.

  CHAPTER 23

  SARA AWOKE IN a hospital room under a paper gown. The room was mint green, too bright. One look and she felt like she’d been there for a week.

  “Jay?” Her voice came out as a dry croak.

  “Easy, sweetheart. I’m right here.”

  She felt his hand press against her right shoulder. Her neck hurt, and there was a nagging tug from an IV setup in her left hand.